I’m sharing an overview of the books I’ve read lately and whether they’re worth adding to your collection.
Hello friends! How are you? I hope you have a nice morning. We’ve had a lot of rain here in Tucson and it really is like dreaming. Looking forward to a walk in the cooler weather this afternoon!
For today’s post, I wanted to share a summary of the books I’ve been reading lately. tbh, reading is still at the end of my priority list right now. I haven’t made much time to read this year as we are still trying to find our feet from homeschooling, working, and staying stuck while the pilot is away. I’m making my way too IHP3 And Peptides for Practitioners Naturally. When I’m a single parent, I usually fall into bed by the time I put the kids to bed and get the laundry folded.
So needless to say, things have slowed down a bit on the reading front, but I’ve still managed to read some fantastic books lately!
Here’s a summary of what I’ve been reading lately and whether I recommend adding it to your list!
Books I’ve read lately
From here to the great unknown
I have always been a big fan of Elvis and had the biggest crush on him when I was in high school. (The Elvis of his youth, okay? 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 features recorded excerpts from Lisa Marie and is also narrated by Julia Roberts (soooo good) and Elvis’ granddaughter, Riley Keogh.
The book describes Lisa Marie’s extraordinary but tumultuous life as Elvis Presley’s only child. It explores fame, identity, addiction, heartbreak and the deep sadness of losing her 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
By Amazon:
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman whom Riley loved and now mourned.
Riley grabbed the tapes her mother had recorded for the book, lay in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about slamming golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About how she was dragged out of the bathroom screaming as she ran to his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, how she was sent to school after school, always getting kicked out, always in trouble. About her special, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about her marriage to Michael Jackson, what they had in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present sadness. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, searing and painful, to the world.
To make her mother known.
This extraordinary book is written in the voices of both Lisa Marie and Riley, a mother and daughter who communicate – from this world to the world beyond – as they try to heal each other. Deeply moving and deeply revealing, From here to the great unknown is a book like no other: the last words of the only child of an American icon.
The Parisian Architect
The Paris Architect is a beautifully written, suspenseful story set in Nazi-occupied Paris. It follows Lucien Bernard, a talented architect who is hired to design secret hideouts for Jewish families – work that could cost him his life if discovered. What starts as a job for extra money soon becomes something much deeper as Lucien’s courage and conscience grow with each risky project. It’s a story about courage, redemption, and how ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they choose compassion over fear. This was a great story – I loved the architectural details too – and I loved the ending. 9/10
By Amazon:
1942, Paris. Architect Lucien Bernard accepts an assignment that will bring him enormous wealth – and perhaps a death sentence. He must design a secret hideout for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined Nazi soldiers will not discover it. When one of Lucien’s designs fails horribly, the problem of hiding a Jew becomes personal and he can no longer deny the enormity of his project. What does he owe his fellow man, and how far will he go to put 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 a life and career, is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He grapples with what it means to live and die – from doctor to patient – and explores how to give life meaning in the face of mortality. This book gave me so much food for thought, and somehow remained enjoyable and light-hearted despite being such a heavy subject. 10/10
By Amazon:
At the age of thirty-six, about to complete a decade-long training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next day 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 naive medical student who, as he wrote, is “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes for a virtuous and meaningful life,” to a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical site of human identity, and ultimately to a patient and new father who finds his own confronts mortality.
What makes life worth living when faced with death? What do you do when the future, which is no longer a ladder to your life goals, ends up in an eternal present? What does it mean to have a child, to cherish a new life while another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi grapples with in this deeply moving, beautifully observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015 while working on this book, but his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that, in a sense, coming face to face with my own mortality had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I cannot go on. I will go on.'” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.
Okay friends: what are you reading lately? Anything you would recommend?
I just started two new books… my goal is to finish them before the holidays 😉
xo
Gina
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