Tag Archives: Books

In My Hands Today…

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When Things Don’t Go Your Way: Zen Wisdom for Difficult Times – Haemin Sunim, translated by Charles La Shure

Have you ever felt like life has thrown you a curveball? Are you struggling to overcome unexpected challenges and setbacks?

While loss, heartbreak, and loneliness are all part of the human experience, in this warm guide, internationally bestselling author Haemin Sunim shows us that these moments can actually be rare opportunities for self-discovery, serving as stepping stones to greater things in life.

Drawing on Zen Buddhist philosophy and Sunim’s own experiences, When Things Don’t Go Your Way helps you navigate life’s challenges with resilience and grace. Whether you’re dealing with rejection, uncertainty, loneliness, conflicts in relationships, or burnout–or simply seeking to improve your mental and emotional well-being–Sunim offers a new spiritual perspective, one that helps us face life’s challenges with greater ease and understanding, and offers solace and courage when we need it the most.

In My Hands Today…

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How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems – Randall Munroe

For any task you might want to do, there’s a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It’s full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.

Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you’re a baby boomer or a 90’s kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you’re done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth’s mantle, or launching it into the Sun.

By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn’t just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

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World Travel: An Irreverent Guide – Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever

Anthony Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania’s utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman’s Empty Quarter—and many places beyond.

In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives readers an introduction to some of his favourite places—in his own words. Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid, World Travel provides essential context that will help readers further appreciate the reasons why Bourdain found a place enchanting and memorable.

Supplementing Bourdain’s words are a handful of essays by friends, colleagues, and family that tell even deeper stories about a place, including sardonic accounts of travelling with Bourdain by his brother, Christopher; a guide to Chicago’s best cheap eats by legendary music producer Steve Albini, and more. Additionally, each chapter includes illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook.

For veteran travellers, armchair enthusiasts, and those in between, World Travel offers a chance to experience the world like Anthony Bourdain.

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The Woke Salaryman Crash Course on Capitalism & Money: Lessons from the World’s Most Expensive City – The Woke Salaryman

Learn the rules of the game of capitalism so you can play to win and build wealth. This crash course on capitalism and lessons from the world’s most expensive city is not your typical personal finance guide.

Written by the founders of the top personal finance blog in Singapore, this book acknowledges the frustrations many young people feel as they enter the world of money, and it shows you how to develop the mindset necessary to thrive for the rest of your life.

Through visual storytelling, Crash Course on Capitalism and Money melds personal finance, economics, sociology, and psychology to create a book that shows you the path to financial success. If you’re ready to rise above discontentment, accept the reality you find yourself in, and put in the work it takes to survive, then thrive in today’s world―then this is the book for you.

In this book, you’ll find a collection of the most popular comics by The Woke Salaryman. The stories are accompanied by commentaries that offer additional context on how each story fits within the bigger framework of approaching the daunting challenge of navigating money, life and purpose in these times. Why you should get the For young people just beginning their personal finance journeys, as well as anyone who wants to make better financial and life choices while navigating the rules of capitalism and wealth, Crash Course on Capitalism and Money is a fun and enlightening read.
Genres
Nonfiction
Finance
Personal Finance
Self Help
Business
Economics
Psychology

In My Hands Today…

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A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story – Qais Akbar Omar

Qais Akbar Omar was born in Kabul in a time of relative peace. Until he was 7, he lived with his father, a high school physics teacher, and mother, a bank manager, in the spacious, garden-filled compound his grandfather had built. Noisy with the laughter of his cousins (with whom they lived in the typical Afghan style), fragrant with the scent of roses and apple blossoms, and rich in shady, tucked-away spots where Qais and his grandfather sat and read, home was the idyllic centre of their quiet, comfortable life.

But in the wake of the Russian withdrawal and the bloody civil conflict that erupted, his family was forced to flee and take refuge in the legendary Fort of Nine Towers, a centuries-old palace in the hills on the far side of Kabul. On a perilous trip home, Omar and his father were kidnapped, narrowly escaping, and the family fled again, his parents leading their 6 children on a remarkable, sometimes wondrous journey. Hiding inside the famous giant Bamiyan Buddhas sculpture, and among Kurchi herders, Omar cobbles together an education, learning the beautiful art of carpet-weaving from a deaf mute girl, which will become the family’s means of support. Against a backdrop of uncertainty, violence and absurdity, young Qais Omar weaves together a story–and a self–that is complex, colourful, and profound.