Sharing a round-up of books I’ve read recently and whether they’re worth adding to your collection.
Hello friends! How are you ? I hope you have a good morning. We’ve had tons of rain here in Tucson and it’s definitely been a dream come true. I’m looking forward to taking a walk in cooler weather this afternoon!
For today’s post, I wanted to share a recap of the books I’ve read recently. Tbh, reading is still towards the end of my priority list right now. I haven’t taken as much time to read this year because we’re still trying to find our rhythm of homeschooling, working, and keeping up while the pilot travels. I’m also making my way IHP3 And Peptides for practitioners because. Usually when I’m a single parent, by the time I put the kids to bed and the laundry is folded, I practically collapse into bed.
So needless to say, reading has been a bit slower, but I’ve still managed to read some amazing books lately!
Here’s a recap of what I’ve been reading lately and whether I recommend adding them to your list!
Books I have read recently
From here to the great unknown
I have always been a huge Elvis fan and had the biggest crush on him when I was in high school. (Early Elvis, ok? haha) I’ve always been intrigued by his life and family, so when I heard about this book, written by his daughter Lisa Marie Presley, I knew I wanted to listen to the audio version. It includes recorded excerpts from Lisa Marie and is also narrated by Julia Roberts (so good) and Elvis’ granddaughter Riley Keogh.
The book chronicles Lisa Marie’s extraordinary but tumultuous life as Elvis Presley’s only daughter. It explores fame, identity, addiction, heartbreak and the deep sorrow of losing your son. Through Riley’s reflections and the discovery of her mother’s recorded tapes, the memoir is an example of resilience and a love letter between mother and daughter. I highly recommend the audio version – 9/10
From Amazon:
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, nor the passionate, joyful, caring, complicated woman Riley loved and mourned now.
Riley took the tapes her mother had recorded for the book, lay in bed, and listened to Lisa Marie tell story after story about smashing golf carts together in Graceland courses, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About being dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. From living in Los Angeles with her mother, to being sent to school after school, always getting kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, her marriage to Michael Jackson, what they had in common. About motherhood. About a deep addiction. About an omnipresent sorrow. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these searing, painful memories to the world.
To make his mother known.
This extraordinary book is written in the voices of Lisa Marie and Riley, a mother and daughter communicating – from this world to the beyond – as they attempt to heal each other. Deeply moving and profoundly revealing, From here to the great unknown is a book like no other: the last words of the only son of an American icon.
The Parisian architect
The Architect of Paris is a beautifully written, suspenseful story set in Nazi-occupied Paris. It follows Lucien Bernard, a talented architect hired to design secret hiding places for Jewish families – a job that could cost him his life if discovered. What begins as a job to earn money quickly becomes something much deeper as Lucien’s courage and conscience grow with each risky project. It’s a story of courage, redemption, and how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they choose compassion over fear. It was an incredible story – I also loved the architectural details throughout – and I loved the ending. 9/10
From Amazon:
1942, Paris. Architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him immense wealth – and perhaps a death sentence. He must design a secret hideout for a wealthy Jew, a space so invisible that even the most determined Nazi soldiers will not discover it. When one of Lucien’s plans fails horribly, the problem of hiding a Jew becomes personal, and he can no longer deny the enormity of his plan. What does he owe his neighbor and how far will he go to make things right?
When breath becomes air
When breath becomes air by Paul Kalanithi is a deeply moving memoir about a gifted neurosurgeon who, in the midst of building his life and career, is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. It questions what it means to live and die – moving from doctor to patient – and explores how to make life meaningful in the face of mortality. This book gave me so much to think about and somehow remained enjoyable and light despite being such a heavy subject. 10/10
From Amazon:
At the age of thirty-six, about to complete a decade of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor caring for the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he writes, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes for a virtuous and meaningful life” to a Stanford neurosurgeon working in the brain, the most critical place in human identity, and finally to a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder to your life goals, flattens into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life while another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this deeply moving and superbly observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi passed away in March 2015 while working on this book, but his words remain a guide and gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat themselves in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I will go on.'” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable and invigorating reflection on the challenge of facing death and the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.
Ok friends: what have you been reading lately? Anything you would recommend?
I just started two new books… my goal is to finish them before the holidays 😉
xo
Gina
