Hi Neighbour,
I’ve been thinking. Why do I favour non-fiction books? Curiosity about the real world? For sure, I admire writers who take on a BIG question and investigate the topic until they’re satisfied that they’ve exhausted all the angles to find the answer. In the past fifteen months, I’ve read and written a blog about eight non-fictions and I’m working on my ninth:
- James Clear’s Atomic Habits (2018),
- J.B.MacKinnon’s The Day the World Stops Shopping (2021),
- Travis Ruskus’s The Rock Balancer’s Guide (2019),
- Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs (2011),
- Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep (2017),
- Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (2016),
- Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937), and
- Lisa Genova’s Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting (2021).
Actually, I’ve also written about Paul Hawken’s DRAWDOWN: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (2017), but it’s like an encyclopaedia, a reference book that you pick up now and again to learn about another way to increase your awareness of global warming. I haven’t read it cover to cover.
I really want to read Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (2021). I’ve seen her on a TED Talk and in another interview, talking about her research. Then I found out that she narrated her own book. That’s wonderful, IMO, because I’ve heard that the book reveals a lot about her life growing up in rural BC. What better person to record that story. So I went online and bought the audiobook. It’s unabridged—more than 12 hours long—so I’ll be able to listen to it while I’m gardening or walking or hiking in Lynn Headwaters. What better place to talk “trees”, eh?
However, that will have to wait until I finish reading Shane O’Mara’s In Praise of Walking (2019). He really tackles the topic from every angle: healthy living, evolution, the brain and body mechanics, spatial sense, walkable cities, creative and social walking. He cites many studies and books in his references. It’s great food for thought. In the first chapter, he talks about how handy it is that we walk on two feet. We can do so much with our hands and arms, when we don’t need them for walking. Our sightlines are better from an upright position; we can carry things; we can hug people; we can communicate without sound. Our toddlers transition from crawling to walking “by taking thousands of steps and making dozens of falls per day.” (p.57)
Long story short: the more you walk, the better you walk, the less you fall.
I really like the quotation, from 1953, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher: “I can only meditate when I’m walking. When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.” (p.7) That speaks to me. Does that ring true for you, too? I’m sure there are many who would agree with me.
‘Til next week, keep on walking, rain or shine.
Fiona