Melody Warnick

I was ecstatic to find this book on a topic about living in a city I don't particular love. Mostly, I just stick around because it's not a bad place to live. Where can I trademark that for a city slogan?

You could just read the checklists at the end of the chapters, or if you really lazy, just read the names of the chapters and get the gist of the book.

Melody is referring to the geographic place, in particular your city jurisdiction, that you live. Could we expand on that and learn to love WHEREVER you are. That means your house, your neighborhood .... your body, your mindset, your heartset. Your relationship, your situation. Your country, your world, your universe. Or just plain old you.





… (más)

I saw very kind words on the front of my edition by Gretchen Rubin. I was unimpressed but decided to read it anyway.

I'm disappointed. I wanted to like it... we have so much in common: English, family, some locations, and other personality things. When she talked about herself I usually found myself thinking "Me too."

But she didn't do that often. In fact, 9/10ths of every chapter was her (sometimes questionable) research, or her chat with a cool person that she traveled to the other side of the country to interview, or even odder asides about people you didn't know who they were... but then, after flipping back a few pages, realized she had referenced at the beginning of the chapter.

And I'm not sure that the 1/10th really counted anyway. She talks about wanting to fit in and belong to her community (which is a worthy goal) but a) forgets to mention things like "join a club," briefly mentions religion (but, given the amount of times she references friends/acquaintances from that religion she should probably focus on it more), and b) starts some of these projects with phrases like "A year and 1/2 after we moved here" or "2 years later" ... this makes it seem less of a genuine desire to feel belonging so much as "my project isn't long enough" filler.

Stunt Journalism has to be done right to be interesting. AJ Jacobs does it right, jumps in with both feet into the deep end (or at least he used to. He's getting a bit soft as he ages). This was too much research, too little implementation, and too little editing.… (más)