Seize the Day: how the dying teach us to live

I’ve always read books to not only better understand the exterior world, but also my own interior world.

In doing this, I tend to read a lot of non-fiction books including biographies, autobiographies and cultural histories.

But I usually stay well away from the self help genre as I’ve always found these types of books paint a rather simplistic view of the world.

Also, I’m not really interested in the “top ten steps’ to be healthier, smarter or more successful etc.

However, after reading a thoughtful review I decided to read Marie de Hennezel’s Seize the Day: how the dying teach us to live.

Despite the title, de Hennezel’s book isn’t really a ‘self help’ book in the traditional sense and certainy doesn’t follow the genre’s standard structure.

Rather it details her experiences as a psychologist working in a palliative care home in Paris. She writes with compassion about her patients, the staff who work there and essentially what drives her to do the type of work she does.

I found great comfort in this elegantly written book, especially as I was dealing with a recent death in the family that involved palliative care.

The patient’s stories are deeply moving and told with great humanity. Moreover, de Hennezel reveals that despite each person's unique history what connects them all is the underlying theme: the need to accept death as part of life. And it is often the families of the dying patients who struggle with this acceptance.

For de Hennezel her role is to just be there for a patient, as a witness to their death but also their life. She writes about these experiences with such a strong, clear and passionate voice.

This was a deeply moving book that helped me better understand some of my own feelings, experiences and emotions.

Like all great books, it doesn't provide any easy answers because there really are no such things in our complicated exterior and interior worlds.

Young adult fiction reading spree

Over the past month or so, I’ve been really getting into my young adult (YA) fiction.

In fact it’s all I’ve been reading, so here are some highlights so far:

Started my YA reading with another dystopian teenage book, Veronica Roth’s Divergent.



This is the first in a planned trilogy, and like the Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games, focuses on a female protagonist who lives in a future world where humanity has been split into factions.

In this new world, there are five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).

It's an interesting premise and after a rather slow start it builds up to an exciting storyline. Overall, it is a little Hunger Games-lite but I did find myself involved and will be looking for the second book, Insurgent, out in May 2012.

The only disappointing thing is the rather stereotypical romance, but then again I’m not the target audience so I need to hold my cynicism in check!

Another great fun series is Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, which is a contemporary retelling of the Greek myths involving modern day teenagers as ‘demi-gods’ – half bloods.



It’s got action, monsters, Gods, Goddesses, mythical creatures and yes a bit of usual romance thrown in. So what’s not to like?

Plus there is so sly humour running through out Riordan’s novels, like having the entry to Hades being LA.

I’m up to the third book in the series, The Titan’s Curse and it’s really reignited my interest in Greek mythology too.

There has been a bit written about why adults are currently flocking to YA fiction, like Alyssa Rosenberg's piece in the Atlantic Monthly and Laura Miller's analysis in Salon.

For me, one of the main reasons I enjoy YA fiction is that it's a genre that is filled with great story tellers.

Put simply YA authors like Suzanne Collins, Patrick Ness, Eoin Colfer, Rick Riordan know how to tell a captivating story filled with memorable characters.

Maybe it's the fact that young adults tend to have less attention span than adults and thus far less likely to put up with endless paragraphs of detailed description, character development and scene setting.

Sometimes, when I read 'literary fiction' and get stuck on a chapter that is all exposition rather than story telling, a little voice in my head yells 'TELL ME THE STORY, pleeeeease!".

That being said, my little secret is that I can't stand teenagers in real life!

Indeed, I prefer them confined to the pages of book as there really nothing more nightmarish than been stuck on a train with a group of teenage girls.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I’m always wary when people who behave terribly, often in the workplace, are described in a slightly forgiving way as ‘complicated’.

Aren’t well all complicated human beings? Does that mean we can all behave as intolerable bullies?

At times, Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Steve Jobs tends towards this “oh he is complicated’ rationale to explain away Job’s awful behaviour in the workplace and in his personal life.

But fortunately, Isaacson as a biographer is able to distance himself from his subject and call Jobs out on his distortions of reality and at times deluded behaviour.

This does stop this book from being a hagiography, though it would have benefited from just a little more distance between the author and his subject.

Overall, this biography is a fascinating testimonial of how one person completely moulded a company to his will and in doing so forced a whole lot of industries to change.

I found the later chapters the most interesting. They focused on the development of the iPhone and iPad and Isaacson provides a detailed account from inside Apple on how Jobs and his team created these game changing products.

Isaacson also traces the often antagonistic relationship between the two titans of the tech world: Jobs and Bill Gates. He also clearly explains the divergent philosophies of Apple and Microsoft/Google, that is the clash between the 'closed' and 'open' system.

I would have liked more about the relationship between Google and Apple, but I guess that topic could take up another book.

This book is worth reading because it not only provides an indepth and fascinating account of one of the key innovators of our time, but also gives you a better understanding of the players in the tech world like Intel, Microsoft, Google and also entertainment industry too.

In the end, Isaacsons's biography reveals to us some of the brute realities of the inspiring tale of Steve Jobs, who built a company where 'technology and creativity' intersect.

Some light holiday reading

It's holiday time and I'm up for some light fun reading, books that 'zip along'.

But of course, this year I got some pretty heavy reading for Christmas presents, including:

• The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi – Peter Popham
• Tinkers - Paul Harding (Pulitzer Prize 2011)
• M16: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 - Keith Jeffrey

So with my brain protesting against such a heavy workload, I thought a nice crime/thriller was in order.

I downloaded the first in Sue Grafton's Alphabet series, A is Alibi, featuring PI Kinsey Millhone.

I've been wanting to get hooked on another series for a while and had often seen Grafton's books around the library and in bookstores and thought it was time I gave her a shot.

Overall, it was a good page turner and Millhone is a smart, funny, fiercly independent and likable character. The story begins when Millhone is hired to the find the 'real' killer of divorce attorney Laurence Fife. She encounters a few dead bodies on the way and with a few twist and turns in the plot, Millhone ends up solving the mystery.

I found the last part of the novel a bit of a stretch, with an unconvincing shift to the action genre that was a bit confusing. That being said, I did finish the book in a couple of sittings so Grafton is an efffective crime writer.

I'm just not sure whether I'll continue with the series, as niether the character or PI genre really grabbed me that intensely.

I guess I'll just have to find another series out there to start.

I recently discovered a great website for called Brain Pickings, which is one these cool 'curated' sites that brings together all things literary and cultural. The latest enewsletter featured the 2011's best biographies and memoirs.

Playing around on my new best friend the Flipboard app on iPad, I've noticed that instead of 'editors' or 'editing' it's all about 'curating' and 'curated' content.

So that being said, my latest career aspiration is to be a 'cool curator' on the Flipboard!

Some notable books for 2011

These are some memorable books that I didn’t get a chance to blog about in 2011:

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern


Brilliant story of duelling magicians and their protégés: Celia and Marco, who battle it out in a circus that only opens at night. It’s filled with wonderful characters and the feats of magic are always grounded in human emotions. One of the most imaginative and enjoyable reads I’ve had this year.

The interrogator : a CIA agent's true story - Glenn Carle


Fascinating and riveting insider account of Carle’s role in the interrogation of potential terrorist suspects. He details the psychology of interrogation and the often compromised operation of US agencies in often hostile countries. Carle writes with a clear sense of urgency, anger and frustration. It is a compelling account of how ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were a moral, political and legal failure.


The coming plague : newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance – Laurie Garrett

This year I really got into my science books; perhaps making up for my youthful disregard of biology and chemistry.

Garret’s book can almost be read as a cultural history of modern science and medicine’s battle with microbes. It tracks the major diseases to emerge in the twentieth century like, Lassa Fever, Marburg, Ebola and Yellow Fever.

Each chapter begins like a detective story, with the breakout of an undetermined illness (often) affecting a third world country. It then traces the doctors, scientist and epidemiologists who go into the field to try and identify the locus of infection. Being a science journalist, Garret is able to clearly and effectively explain complexities of how viruses work and how ‘smart’ they can be.

I found this a truly fascinating book and at times very scary, as it seems in the battle between our immune systems and viruses we always seem to be on the losing side.

Reading this book, really prepped me to watch Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion. And I’ve got to say the book was far more compelling and interesting than the film.