Noble Beginnings, by LT Ryan

This is the prequel to Noble Intentions, and I'm surprised that I read it given my impression of that novel.  But, it was free on Kindle when I downloaded it.

The story explains how it is that Marine Jack Noble finds himself in a mess with the CIA in Afghanistan, leaves government service, and ends up as an independent consultant.

Noble Beginnings: A Jack Noble Thriller (Jack Noble #1)

Into the End, by Bonnie Paulson

After a number of natural disasters hit the USA, an unknown force invades in this confusing, first in a series, novel.  Our hero, Rachel, is a psychologist who worked for the US government on how to frighten people, and some of the scenarios that occur in the invasion map to her work.  So what's going on?  Apparently only those who read the next book in the series will find out.  I, therefore, will never know.

Into the End (Into the End Series)

Eating Animals, by Jonathan Foer

This book was recommended to me by a friend who enjoys Mr. Foer's novels.  In this account, Mr. Foer, about to become a parent, decides to figure out if vegetarianism makes sense.   He undertakes an investigation of the factory and local farm industries which he reports with lots of autobiographical seasoning.  As such, it is pretty interesting.

Except.

It becomes clear after even his initial investigation that factory farming is simply horrid for the animals involved.  If you have any interest in how livestock is treated, you won't have to read far before you say, "enough, message received."

What I enjoyed even more was Mr. Foer's conversation about the decision to eat some meat products but not others.  He writes specifically about dogs in this context, but not enough to get the point across. Why do we eat (intelligent) pigs but not (somewhat less intelligent) dogs?

Eating Animals

A Patriot's Betrayal, by Andrew Clawson

Imagine you want to write a book with a plot line similar to that of The Da Vinci Code .  You might end up with this novel.  But it is a pretty weak imitation.

A Patriot's Betrayal

Supreme Justice, by Max Collins

In this mystery / suspense novel, our hero is a former Secret Service agent who now runs an upscale security firm.  He's recruited to be a consultant to the FBI as they investigate what becomes a sequence of assassinations of Supreme Court Justices.

The book was okay, and would have been better had some of the more unlikely scenarios been edited out. For example, the hero's access to the President, his unfettered access as a consultant, etc.

Supreme Justice

The Happy Herbivore Guide to Plant-Based Living, by Lindsay Nixon

The only bad news about this wonderful little book is that it is available only as a Kindle edition.  Still, since one can read it with a free Kindle reader on almost any platform, that isn't an insurmountable problem.

The first part of the book provides an overview of the science-based health reasons for one to eat a whole food, plant based diet.  This is similar in content to Rip Esselstyn's My Beef With Meat, is slightly more of an overview than deep dive when compared to Dr. John McDougall's Starch Solution, and is far easier a read than T. Colin Campbell's Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition.  (I highly recommend all of these books.)

The next section goes through what to expect if you switch from the Standard American Diet to a whole food, plant based diet.  Then, a great section of helpful tips for making this transition.  There's a section on travel and eating out, one on how to address challenges you might encounter, and how to deal with family and friends.

Then a section on cooking, including replacements for traditional ingredients.  This is followed by a troubleshooting section, and finally, a good appendix of additional resources.

If you're thinking about making the change, this is a great reference -- it has everything from your initial grocery list to the answers to questions that will come up in the first few days and weeks.

The Happy Herbivore Guide to Plant-Based Living

The Imperial Connection, by Edward Charles

This was an "enjoyable enough but it isn't literature" suspense novel.  The hero, Mike, travels to find an injured former military teammate who is homeless.  He happens upon Andy and of course they instantly fall in love.  She has extraordinary skills that complement Mike's.

In Mr. Charles' world, FBI agents are helpful to the point of repairing broken doors for their victims. The military is helpful to the point of retargeting drones and firing missiles on random property inside the USA.  The intelligence agencies are helpful... oh, heck, let's just say that I'm skeptical.


The Imperial Connection (The Connection series)

10% Happier, by Dan Harris

This is a surprisingly interesting book! Mr. Harris is a TV reporter / anchor who at the time of this writing works on Nightline. I've never seen him on TV (I try to stick with NPR and PBS for my non-financial news). But the title was interesting. 80% of the book is an amusing auto-biography that orbits around Mr. Harris' search for a means by which to quiet the critical and annoying voices in his head - those of his inner mind telling him unhelpful things.

I'm reminded of the book Crucial Conversations .  It describes a process by which we observe events and tell ourselves a story to map to the events, one which dictates our response.  That book, serving business people by helping them to have more productive conversations with colleagues, bosses and subordinates, points out that the story we tell ourselves about a situation is often unreasonable, and that if we consider that another story might map to the facts just as well, we can defuse an otherwise explosive encounter.

Along the way, Mr. Harris was exposed to a number of self-help folks.  It is worth reading the book if only for his honest and amusing description of some of these people.  Meanwhile, he stumbles into meditation.  His approach is really that of "I am uncomfortable with the idea, with the people who promote it, with the promises, and with the associated spirituality, but fine, I'll try it out."

The title comes from his realization that he could avoid getting "oh, now you're weird" reactions from folks who learned about his meditation if he just described it as a way to get 10% happier.

Mr. Harris describes how he first heard the RAIN acronym: recognize, allow, investigate, non-identification, as part of his meditation practice.  This resonates with me as an addendum to the Crucial Conversations notions of re-thinking the story.

Mr. Harris is very open about his struggles, his drug use, and his panic attack on air while doing Good Morning America.  These descriptions don't seem contrived, but rather support the tone of his book as authentic.

I recommend this book even if you have no intention of meditating.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

I don't want to say anything bad about Mr. Altucher's book. So I'll stop right here.

Choose Yourself!

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt

Dr. Haidt's book is a delight.  The bulk of it is spent introducing and elaborating upon the notion that people have a duality, which he refers to as the elephant and its rider.   The elephant was "shaped by natural selection to trigger quick and reliable action, and it includes parts of the brain that make us feel pleasure and pain ... and that trigger survival-related motivations."  The rider is the controlled system, which Dr. Haidt positions as more of an advisor. And so he quotes Hume: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

This isn't a philosophy text, so Dr. Haidt provides clear references of scientific experiment to support his points.  All very interesting, but I got some unanticipated insights from the book as well.

I hadn't a very clear perspective on the value of a fixed moral guideline (as typically provided by religions) compared to an ethical humanist's approach to behavior.  Let me quote Dr. Haidt from the conclusion to this section of his book - and when you read this, consider that he self identifies as a liberal and an atheist:

"I believe that we have indeed lost something important - a richly textured common ethos with widely shared virtues and values. Just watch movies from the 1930s and 1940s and you'll see people moving around in a dense web of moral fibers: Characters are concerned about their honor, their reputation, and the appearance of propriety. Children are frequently disciplined by adults other than their parents. The good guys always win, and crime never pays. It may sound stuffy and constraining to us now, but that's the point: Some constraint is good for us; absolute freedom is not."

Then, quoting from sociologist James Hunter 's book The Death of Character:

"Before the Industrial Revolution, Americans honored the virtues of 'producers' - hard work, self-restraint, sacrifice for the future, and sacrifice for the common good. But during the twentieth century, as people became wealthier and the producer society turned gradually into the mass consumption society, and alternative vision of the self arose - a vision centered on the idea of individual preferences and personal fulfillment. The intrinsically moral term 'character' fell out of favor and was replaced by the amoral term 'personality.'"

 If the book concluded after these two big themes - explaining the elephant and rider metaphor and its implications, and discussing the broader context of human behavior - I'd have been delighted.  He continued, however, to discuss divinity, virtue, and the meaning of life.  Which fits the title, but I didn't find these sections quite as engaging.  Still I heartily recommend the book.


The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom