This month’s choices:
Nonfiction
The Psychology of Money
By Morgan Housel
Often I’ll find books about money or time management or some other self-help book and make it my January selection. You know, start the year off with some recalibrating.
But I just finished Housel’s terrific look at how WE look at money after hearing him as a podcast guest.
“The Psychology of Money” is the kind of book you’ll wish you’d read when you were 19 years old—assuming you’d have been mature enough to digest its message. Nonetheless, even if you’re 40 or 50 or older, it still offers great lessons.
I want my 23-year-old stepdaughter to read it, but at the very least I’m going to have her read Chapter 4. It’s all about the magic of compounding. Again, it’s something we all knew about when we were young, but most of us were just not disciplined enough to put it to work for us.
This is not a long book, and it doesn’t need to be. Even with its brevity, there were indeed some spots I skimmed. But I’m confident you’ll find enough gems in here to make you think and—more importantly—act.
Find your copy here.
Have you ever heard about a book for years, and recognized that it was loved and celebrated as one of the best in its genre, and yet you just never got around to reading it?
That’s the case for me with “Hyperion.” The book came out in the late 1980s, and since the author lives in Colorado, I heard all about it. Dan Simmons was a sixth-grade teacher until this book took off and he could finally devote all his time to writing.
So, back to this book. It took me only 36 years to finally read it. And I loved it, of course.
But be aware: this is not some casual, read-in-a-day sci-fi yarn. No, Simmons has created a fascinating look at our future as a space-faring species, complete with dazzling technology (and its sometimes-frightening applications), political drama and intrigue, and touching stories of family love.
In a nutshell, seven pilgrims embark on a journey to the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion, ancient ruins that are guarded by a diabolical creature known as the Shrike. Each of the pilgrims tells his or her own tale, a blending of stories that weaves the story together. This is the first in a four-book Hyperion collection. I just started #2 last night. Simmons set the bar high with book one; somehow, I believe the sequel will be just as good.
Find your copy here.
Fiction
Hyperion
By Dan Simmons
Last Month’s Picks
The Giver
By Lowis Lowry
A classic in young adult literature, set in a dystopian world.
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Happy reading!
The Smallest Lights in the Universe
By Sara Seager
A moving memoir about a planetary scientist’s search for life in the universe - while coming to grips with her own life.