As mentioned, I’ve been trying to be more discerning—yet less structured—in my reading, and spend more time putting ideas into actions. I didn’t read as many books this month as I typically do, but I ended up enjoying the experience a lot more. I dipped in and out of some old favorites, like David Sedaris’s Happy Go Lucky andWhen You Are Engulfed in Flames. I also read Lukas Gage’s memoirI Wrote This for Attention, which was a random choice for me but I LOVED it. I read How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr which was eye-opening. I’ve also been making my way throughThe Wisdom of Marcus Aurelius by Robin Waterfield, as well as—for the ninth time—A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy. I credit Tolstoy’s wisdom and teachings—Christian teachings, mind you—for turning me into such a flaming leftist. Oh, and if you haven’t heard, Anne Lamott and her husband, Neal Allen, released a new book in March:Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences. I’m only a few chapters in and it is fantastic.
One of the best books I read this month was1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How it Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Oh my goodness, it’s SO good. A 400+ page book about the Wall Street crash sounds like a remedy for insomnia, but it’s the opposite. I actually had a hard time going to sleep because I wanted to stay up and keep reading. The book follows the main players—the financiers, bankers, and government figures who helped fuel the speculation and then had to deal with the fallout—all from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. One especially fascinating thread is Carter Glass, who seems to have had a personal vendetta against National City Bank president Charles Mitchell. It’s all riveting. And Sorkin is such a fantastic writer that you often forget he’s the one doing the writing at all.