After reading The Heaven and Earth Grocery Story, by James McBride, a story about a small town and its Black and Jewish neighbors, I was intrigued to learn more about the author’s life. I’d passed his memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, many times on the bookshelf in…
Category: Monday Morning Reading
Trust – Hernan Diaz
When I was young, I remember my mother telling me about the trailblazing movie Rashomon (full disclosure – I tried to watch it and never got through it!). Filmed in 1950, it tells the same story from four points of view, demonstrating the power of subjectivity and perspective in how we understand and make sense…
C.S. Richardson – All the Colour in the World
There are many things that have changed since I turned 40. I like olives, cilantro, and spicy food (I still hate whiskey), and my interest in literature that has an unconventional writing style has expanded. All the Colour in the World, by C.S. Richardson, a book shortlisted for the Giller Prize, is a prime example. …
Fredrik Backman – Things My Son Needs to Know About the World
Motivation number one for reading Things My Son Needs to Know About the World was that I adore the author, Fredrik Backman (e.g. Beartown, Anxious People). Motivation number two was that it was an opportunity to do some reflection on parenting. Perhaps there was less of number two than I had hoped for, but there…
James McBride – The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
The title of James McBride’s book, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, was enough for me to want to read it. The book begins by us learning that a decomposed body is found in a well in Pennsylvania in 1972, and ends when we learn how that body got there in 1936. However, in terms…
Us Against You – Fredrick Backman
I’ve truly enjoyed all of the Fredrik Backman books I’ve read, especially Beartown. This summer I finally got around to reading the second book in the Beartown series, Us Against You. While I’ll do my best to avoid any spoilers, I really would encourage you to read Beartown, and then this sequel. They are deeply…
Peter Attia – Outlive
I’ve decided to start my Monday Morning Reading series this year with a book that I think suits the beginning of the year – Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, by Dr. Peter Attia. Originally from Toronto, Attia is a Stanford, Johns Hopkins and NIH trained surgeon, who left all of that behind to…
Patrick Lencionni – Silos, Politics and Turf Wars (and how it connects to our work at Netivot)
I struggled to decide which of the two books I’d recently read should be shared as my ‘last’ book of the 2022-2023 school year. I came down on the side of Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, by the management consultant Patrick Lencionni, and I’ll explain why below. I’ve written about Lencionni’s books before, which I…
Rav Rimon
Part of my daily learning seder includes halacha. I’ve learned different sefarim over the years, most often classics like Mishna Berura or Shmirat Shabbat Ke’Hilchata. But more recently, my favourites have been the books of Rav Tzvi Rimon (having just finished his volume about Sefirat HaOmer and laws around the bracha for newly flowering trees…
Tim Urban – What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies
I cannot give enough praise to Tim Urban’s recent book, What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies. It is exceptional, and a profoundly important book, in two ways. First, it is an outstanding and clear diagnosis of the social and intellectual ills in our society today – both on the ‘left’ and the ‘right,’…