September 3, Books, Pt 1. The season seems to have changed practically overnight up here; the rustling trees this past weekend made me miss the much more colorful Northeastern autumn. My patio plants, having been fried mercilessly by unseasonable heat, are now withering from cold nighttime temps… but sitting outside with these rustling trees has cursed me with a touch of homesickness.

I always think of the first line of Roethke’s “Coming of the Cold” at this time of year: “The late peach yields a subtle musk” …alas, there are no peaches growing in this state. And so, sometimes where I’m from and where I live seem forever apart. Autumn here is typically a rapid and violent death in a brief period of time: one day a cold wind comes and blows all the scraggly leaves off the trees and that’s it. Onto 6 months of winter in a parentheses of slush and mud.

Winter here is also reading season (for non-readers, it’s ‘Netflix and chill’ season, and also backcountry ski season, and for some it’s ‘drink until the sun comes up again’ season). I’ve been flying a lot, so I’ve also been reading a lot, but I intend to pick up my pace further in the winter. I got sort of sucked into a wormhole in terms of subject matter, so books 2, 3 and 4 are related.

Night of Stone: Death and Memory in 20th Century Russia | This was an incredible find from Title Wave in Anchorage. There is someone (or there are some people) reading excellent books on the Soviet Union and the former Eastern bloc and then turning them into Title Wave. I don’t know who you are, but you rule, and I wish I could find you, because I can tell from your underlines and highlights you are thinking as you read these books. I can’t think of a book that looks solely at death (and, occasionally, the ceremony or more often lack thereof) surrounding it at different periods of time in Russia (and let me tell you, I’ve read an embarrassing amount of Russia books). It’s an ambitious topic; one which obviously inspires the author. It’s difficult to read only because I think the anonymity of death at many points in Russia is sort of lost on Westerners: it is so different, so alien to us that it’s nearly impossible to truly imagine. There is a very good, in-depth review of this book here. Truly a unique read and has been passed onto another avid Russian history reader.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World | This was an impulse buy; or perhaps Amazon’s algorithm (in combination with the Alexa devices my roommate has peppered our house with) suggested it because I’ve been telling people lately that I don’t care about my career (I mean that in a positive way). I suppose if I had needed some reinforcement or moral support in my “I’ll just learn how to do something else whenever I get bored” attitude, this would be a good one to read. I think the 10,000 hour anecdote years ago sent too many people in a singular direction, and I think the world also seems to love experts and high specialization; for most of my life I’ve wanted to keep options open and diversify as much as possible so I’m versatile enough to flex into whatever interests me. For that reason I’m not particularly amazing at anything, but I am pretty good at a lot of things. The author doesn’t go so far as to say that high specialization is necessarily bad; only that there are many benefits to not trying so hard in one realm to be perfect in that same realm, and that creativity and imagination are more flexible when there are more externalities and when other interests are pursued. This is a good book to pass along to someone who hates his or her job or career; it’s never too late to pick up something else. NY Times review here.

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why | We are now on the 2nd step of the cascade of interconnected books; when chatting about Range with a friend of mine, he suggested Deep Survival, which was completely fascinating once I got a few chapters into it. I can’t really find any particularly compelling reviews of this book; and the second half of the book is more interesting than the first. It’s mostly a collection of gnarly survival stories (some actual survival stories, and some total fails); there’s a lot of psychology and insight that can be applied to every day life: casting away mental models, using curiosity, optimism, etc. There’s a story in this book about smokejumpers not dropping their tools and dying as a result that was completely mind-blowing; I’ve thought a lot about it since reading about it. This is especially an awesome book for outdoorsy people, but really it’s relevant to anyone who wonders what kind of person s/he’d be in a true crisis. Two meh reviews here and here.

The Survivor Personality | I read The Survivor Personality because it was cited repeatedly in Deep Survival, and it’s entirely (and obviously) about the psychology of survival… surviving anything, big or small, and surviving it mentally. Don’t judge a book by its tacky self-help cover (ok, it is a little self help-y): this is another decently good read (if you have to choose, read Deep Survival). I’ve read a lot about this — resilience in general, ACE scores, etc — this is a good quick one that I hadn’t come across before. Resiliency is important regardless of what kind of life you have and understanding how all of these elements come together internally is pretty relevant to just about everyone. The chapter list gives somewhat of an idea of what’s in this book. It went a few routes I hadn’t expected.

1. Life Is Not Fair and That Can Be Very Good For You
2. Playful Curiosity: Learning What No One Can Teach You
3. Flexibility: An Absolutely Essential Ability
4. The Synergy Imperative: Needing To Have Things Work Well
5. Empathy Is A Survival Skill
6. The Survivor’s Edge: The Subconscious Resources of Intuition, Creativity, and Imagination
7. The Serendipity Talent: Turning Misfortune Into Good Luck
8. The Good Child Handicap
9. Thriving
10. The Roots of Resiliency: Your Inner “Selfs”
11. Self-Managed Healing
12. Surviving Emergencies and Crises
13. Surviving Being a Survivor
14. Your Transformation: Learning About Surviving and Thriving

The other four coming tomorrow… probably… in the meantime, here’s a glacier. Because, Alaska.