14 August 2016
My summer was both productive and non-productive in the classical senses, depending what “productive” means in your vocabulary. I’m a big believer in making lemonade if life gives you lemons or making orange juice if life gives you oranges. You get my drift. Since moving back to the Bay Area from Los Angeles, I’ve had to join the masses in their daily and excruciating struggle; a struggle that pay no credence to race or gender and humbles all that decide to engage it: Rush Hour.
I was WFH in LA and did not have to deal with the daily commute (how blessed I was for this arrangement was not lost on me) which gave me an extra 2 hours a day (or 40 hours a month) to do “productive” things. The move back to the Bay really flipped the script and I’ve had my share of nostril-flaring, eyebrow-furrowing moments on the road in the first few weeks of adjustment. But luckily, I was able to come up with a solution; my lemonade, Audible.com.
Reading has always been a constant source of edification in my life and came in many forms (Facebook newsfeed, Feedly, Kindle…etc), but the jump to audio was new for me since I wasn’t sure if I’d get the same retention of knowledge that the visuals of print provided. So far the larger picture of storytelling, culture and events have not been lost on me so far with the audio books I’ve listened to. I’ve comprised a list of books I’ve finished this summer which does not include books that are in-progress or books that I thought were not worth recommending. I’ve listed them in the order of impact on my thinking and life in general. Enough banter, here’s my summer list: