Emotional Intelligence 2.0

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Another fun and informative read in Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry.  Always good to learn some skills that can help you manage your initial emotionally-charged reactions. A great reminder that we can control many of our guttural responses to the environment... and to others we live and work among.  The book starts with a ‘test’ to rate your emotional intelligence, which you get to do again at the end of the book.  Bradberry provides an introductory story of a surfer who has to respond to a potential shark attack as he is out to ride the waves.  It is through managing his emotions that he escapes without injury.  This serves as our guide to handling our emotions in any given situation.  Through self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, we can become more successful in our relationships AND be healthier.  He provides fifteen self-awareness strategies:

Quit treating your feelings as good or bad

Observe the ripple effect from your emotions

Lean into your discomfort

Feel your emotions physically

Know who and what pushes your buttons

Watch yourself like a hawk

Keep a journal about your emotions

Don’t be fooled by a bad mood

Don’t be fooled by a good mood, either

Stop and ask yourself why you do things you do

Visit your values

Check yourself

Spot your emotions in books, movies, and music

Seek feedback

Get to know yourself under stress

OK, so look this list over. Is there anything that would make you not think this is great practice?  It’s a great reminder that we can be better IF we really want to be better in our relationships with others.  Excellent read.  Pick it up!

Educated

Educated

by Tara Westover

Happy Anniversary to my wife!  29 years.  And finished the book Educated by Tara Westover.  It is her memoir, the story of growing up in the mountain region of Idaho with Mormon parents who decided to home-school her. This decision was based on her father’s belief that the schools were teaching students lies and sins, including his other children.  Tara grew up in a very abusive family situation, certainly emotional/verbal abuse from her father, and physical/emotional/verbal abuse from one of her brothers.  The book moves from her hard work on the farm/mountain for her father to her college education with a scholarship to Harvard and Oxford, where she earned her PhD.  Tara acquires a formal education but also learns about how the abuse affects her emotional development.  It is a hard book to get through.  As a first-generation student, I would have liked a bit more about the struggles in her pursuit of education.  Clearly the abuse issues are important as well. She needed to validate that these things happened to her but also show that others in this situation that there are ways to move past a life of abuse.  It is the NYU first-year student read this year – so glad I read it.

Pedro Paramo

Pedro Paramo

by Juan Rulfo

Finished a classic Latin American book, Pedro Paramo, written by Juan Rulfo.  It is a difficult story to understand initially until you recognize that it goes from past to present throughout and involves various first-person narrators.  It begins with Juan Preciado traveling to find the whereabouts of his absent father, whom his mother asked to visit while she was on her deathbed.  She noted that his father had much debt to pay to her and that her son should inherit it.  While on his journey to Comala (the village in Mexico), Juan meets a man named Abundio who offers to take him to the village of his father.  When he gets there, he is told to meet with an elderly woman who is a native of the land.  She informs him that the man he was traveling to find is dead and that the land is full of spirits from the past.  We learn of several stories from the various spirits, including Pedro Paramo’s leadership of the village, his womanizing ways and how the one woman he loved rebuffs him, which culminates in him turning his back on the village.  This ultimately leads to the ‘death’ of the village as his true love has no interest in him.  If one can get through the back and forth stories, it is a beautifully written, full of sadness and unfulfilled dreams.  A book that inspired many writers in Latin America.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

by Emily Danforth

Finished reading Emily Danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post. It is the coming of age story of Cam Post, a 12-year-old who begins to identify her feelings with actions towards other young girls.  Her first experimentation occurs and she later learns her parents have been killed in a car accident.  There are a number of girls who come into and leave her life during this age of experimentation.  The problem Cam faces, growing up in an ultra-conservative Montana town, is that she and her good female friend, Coley, get caught in a moment of passion. Unfortunately for Cam, Coley lies and tells her mother that Cam seduced her.  Coley’s mother brings her to the local Protestant minister to confess ‘her sins’, which leads him to inform Cam’s grandmother and aunt, her new guardians.  Cam is subsequently sent away to “God’s Promise”, a full-time school that ‘treats’ young people to no longer have homosexual tendencies. The rest of the story focuses on the school and the various issues among the students, one who later seduces Cam.  In the end, Cam and two of her peers go on a hiking trip to the site of where Cam’s parents were killed.  She makes peace with herself and her parents' death.  OK.  I’d say the story is important, but I have to say, it didn’t flow well for me.  It seemed somewhat “over the top” and I never really connected with the disjointed aspects of the story.  Kind of like a story about ‘shock’ therapy but didn’t allow for the reader – me in this case – to really connect with the pain and despair of the main character.  A choppy story that didn’t bring in the characters very well.  Not the best ‘coming of age’ story that I have read.  There are better, though I’m not sure many from a female perspective.

Men Explain Things to Me

Men Explain Things to Me

by Rebecca Solnit

Finished another RA favorite book, Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit.  It is a series of essays that she wrote over a number of years compiled and published in 2014, which helped re-ignite the latest movement for female equality and voice. Essays range from reflections on Virginia Wolff to emphasizing the role men play in the physical abuse of women. She is given credit for the term "mansplaining", though she refutes that she created the term. The book came out prior to the #metoo movement, but it has been used as a resource to share the troubling issues related to sexual harassment and sexual assault.  Her essays go deep into facts of female abuse around the world with specific examples used to emphasize her points.  It is a deeply troubling series of facts shared that leads one to realize - when will the abuse stop??  Solnit does not only try to educate men on the facts – she reminds the reader that there are men who serve as allies as well.  But men need to lead the charge on educating other men on the serious issues related to physical abuse.  The essays on their own are well-written and compel the reader to action.

The One

The One

by Vicky Jones

Always fun to meet with Tisch students as they do love plays (rather than books), so my read of the day was The One by Vicky Jones.  The play is set in a 12-hour period with three characters, Harry and Jo, who are romantically connected, and Kerry, their friend.  During the time that Jo’s sister is in labor, she and Harry are engaged in sex before they are interrupted by Kerry knocking on the door.  The couple engages in a destructive game, playing on Kerri’s gullibility, leading her to believe that Jo was just raped by her boyfriend.  The lust/toxic relationship and verbal engagement leading to physical violence between the two with the overtone of being ‘playful’ didn’t play well for me.  The relationship was bothersome, bordering on being abusive both ways.  While the play was a “Verity Bargate” Award-winning play, I didn’t find the humor or level of depth to lead me to embrace the characters or the story line.  Maybe I’m getting too old?  Maybe not.  I was not moved by this one, sorry.

The Gargoyle

The Gargoyle

by Andrew Davidson

Just finished a really creative book that I couldn’t put down!  Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle is a complicated tale that ties in multiple stories bringing two characters closer and closer.  I loved the juxtaposition of the two main characters, the male (who is unnamed), a former porn star, who begins the story crashing his car off a cliff and getting caught in a burning car.  He is rescued and a woman who has no memory of her past, Marianne Engel, befriends him at the hospital’s burn unit while he recovers from the accident.  The ‘Burned Man’ loses his ‘former life’ as he has lost some of his bodily functions, including the loss of his penis, in the accident.  Marianne brings a ‘century-long’ history to him, suggesting that the two of them have been connected through many lives.  She shares these ‘many lives’ with him over the course of the book.  The ‘Burned Man’ leaves the hospital after a year of recovery and dozens of surgeries and goes to live with Marianne, who herself left the hospital years before after being in the hospital’s mental ward.  She had been released under the care of a person who is now her agent representing her sculpting work.  The chapters of the book go from present day to the past lives of the two characters (Burned Man and Marianne) in the 1400s.  Marianne shares their legacy with lessons learned in each story (for example, of a monastery in Germany and a number of romantic tales that bring the two close together yet always further apart).  All of the stories involved the Burned Man’s character getting “burned” to death.  The stories are quite beautiful in how the characters try to find each other and navigate the various obstacles that stand in their way.  Marianne’s mental condition is questioned by the various people who interact with her and the Burned Man in the hospital, and things worsen when he moves in with her.  As the story comes to an end, Marianne is in a frenzy, engaged in her final art sculptures of her life while the Burned Man tries to figure out her next move – which ends up being a suicide walk into the ocean.  A love story with a twist.  The stories flow well and keep the reader captivated through the end.  Not my usual type of book but really enjoyed it, especially the multiple story lines.     

Of Love and Shadows

Of Love and Shadows

by Isabel Allende

Finished reading Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende.  The story is set in Chile during the time of the Pinochet dictatorship.  Irene Beltrán is a magazine editor who investigates the disappearance of Evangelina Ranquileo, a girl suffering from strange and sudden “outbursts” which provide her with miraculous powers.  Her partner in the search is a photographer, Francisco Leal, who comes from the “other side of the tracks” than Irene (who comes from a wealthy family). Francisco, raised by an impoverished Marxist family, is a sympathizer to the underground resistance movement.  Though Irene is engaged to Gustavo Morante, a captain in the military, she falls in love with Francisco.  Together, the two of them discover a hidden mine full of dead bodies where they find Evangelina laying among the others.  Now, their work turns into a life and death situation.  They hope that, through this discovery, they can overthrow the current leaders in the government by getting the information to the masses.  In corrupt societies ruled by fear and death, doing this is an impossible task as both Irene and Francisco discover.  This is a love story amidst the power of evil.  Unfortunately, this is a real problem in parts of our own world.  A beautiful story.  Highly recommend.

Spring RA Book Club: The Opposite of Loneliness

The Opposite of Loneliness

by Marina Keegan

Gisel's review:

The Opposite of Loneliness is a composition of essays and short stories written by Marina Keegan, a Yale graduate who sadly passed away in a car accident shortly after graduating. Many people spend their lives trying to figure out what the meaning of life is and where their individual purpose fits within that context. Marina accomplished this at a much younger age than most. Artists give meaning to life and that's exactly what Marina did with her fiction and non-fiction stories. Marina continues to live through the stories she wrote and through the profound insights we get as readers from this book.

Bobbi's review:

Whether you’re a fan of short stories, or you’ve never read a story shorter than 100 pages, Marina Keegan’s The Opposite of Loneliness has something that nearly everyone can enjoy. The stories vary in content and could appeal to many readers, though Keegan does present her stories with a younger voice. I finished the works in a total of two nights because each one captivated my attention to the point that I barely noticed the passing of time. While I preferred the fiction works, her nonfiction works were just as fascinating. The collection feels even more impressive after learning that Keegan wrote these stories at such a young age, and it’s quite unfortunate to know that her life ended so abruptly. After finishing the book, I immediately lent it to my sister, which I do only with select books, as I know she will only read something that she can truly engage with. It almost goes without saying that I would recommend this collection of stories to anyone who enjoys reading.

Colin's review:

Marina Keegan's The Opposite of Loneliness is a collection of short stories that ultimately acts as Keegan's memoir. Though most of the pieces are fictional, each one is dressed in a theme that serves to explore the soft and more difficult sides of human nature. To say that her work is beautiful is an understatement, the craftsmanship compares to works by more experienced writers, but where Keegan truly stands out is her ability to write at a contemporary level that speaks volumes to all audiences. We've all been in situations as described in her stories and can feel what each character is going through. Though she has moved on, her works are lasting.

Nanako's review:

I really enjoyed reading The Opposite of Loneliness. The fact that the author had passed really made me appreciate what she had to say about life and taking advantage of every single day in her stories. I also loved that she was a college student when she wrote these stories because I found them very relatable, and they spoke to me in ways that other books have not. The fact that the book was a compilation of short stories instead of one long story itself was fascinating and different for me, as I often don’t read books like that. I find that I enjoyed this more because I was left pondering on possibilities after the story had ended. This mimics what happens in real life when we meet people and hear about their stories; we are left wondering what they are going to make of themselves in the world, especially for young people like ourselves, and I appreciated getting to know her fictional character stories and her own stories as well.

How Music Works

How Music Works

by David Byrne

If you enjoy music, this book is a great overview of the US music business, written by a rock ‘n roller David Byrne from the Talking Heads.  In How Music Works, Byrne interweaves his band’s music as he discusses the importance of space, place, and technology, the evolution of music, and what drives the business.  He gives an outstanding overview of how money and technology drive how music has changed.  Byrne shares how his introversion didn’t stop him from success. There were a number of influences that impacted Byrne – traveling globally (Japan, New Zealand), dress/costume, how music was sold (LPs, CDs), performance (changing spaces), business (who holds the power for how music is sold), and the fact that music will continue to morph based on how it is heard/sold.  Lots of tidbits about other performers who have helped impact the industry. Again, super surprised that the lead singer of a group I listened to as a youth wrote such an informative book for music aficionados. Add this one to your list!