Tag Archives: non-fiction

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (PWBR00186)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 20 2020

Plot or Premise

This is a self-help guide to reducing your stress levels by choosing to care only about those things that are important to you.

What I Liked

I found this a very odd book to read. In almost every chapter, I found myself disagreeing with his evidence and examples, often thinking they proved the opposite of what he was trying to use them to prove, yet at the same time agreeing with some of the premises. It felt more like he had some solid ideas throughout, just not very well developed. Like, for instance, that we have limited bandwidth to care about things and therefore we should not care about a lot of unimportant stuff (hence the title), finding problems you like to solve (i.e. what you love), prioritizing better values for ourselves in line with what we love, and certainty being an enemy of growth (so you should risk failure more).  » Read the rest

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Articles I Like: Straight Up Non-fiction with a Twist (WD March/April 2015)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
April 10 2019

Most days, I aspire to calling myself a writer. In reality, I’m merely a blogger. Sure, I’ve written more than 1M words on my blog, and my daily “hit” count is rising with each extra bundle of content I provide, but I haven’t finished my non-fiction book about HR processes, and it is a very long time since I attempted anything resembling fiction.

Some people maintain their dream through pre-writing activities. Maybe “reading about writing”, through books like Stephen King’s On Writing, or other writing guides by Lawrence Block or Sue Grafton, or how-to guides like Save the Cat!, or a whole host of other books out there from big writers talking about their writing process. Others join writing and critiquing groups, online or in person. And others subscribe to writing magazines such as Writer’s Digest to get their “fix” that somehow they are honing their craft without actually honing their craft through, you know, WRITING.  » Read the rest

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RASC Observer’s Handbook, 2019 by Edited by James S. Edgar (PWBR00142)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 12 2019

Plot or Premise

This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

What I Liked

Each year, the Observer’s Guide is produced and sold to amateur and professional astronomers across North America, and those astronomers vary considerably in their capacity and interests. It’s hard to serve any “one group”, but as I am at the intro stage to the hobby, I’ll review from that perspective. Some highlights include:

  • List of observatories, star parties, planetaria (pp 11-14);
  • Observable satellites of the planets (pp 25-26);
  • Observing artificial satellites (p 38);
  • Overview of filters (pp 64-67);
  • Deep-sky observing hints by Alan Dyer (pp 85-87);
  • Lunar observing (pp 158-161);
  • The brightest stars (pp 274-283, 285); and,
  • The deep sky (pp 307-337).

Of course, it also has the key reference materials:

  • The Moon (pp 148-157);
  • The Sun (pp 184-193);
  • Dwarf and minor planets (pp 241-251); and,
  • Double and multiple stars (pp 291-294, 296-297).
  » Read the rest
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Change: What Really Leads to Lasting Personal Transformation by Jeffrey A. Kottler (PWBR00118)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
December 17 2018

Plot or Premise

Kottler reflects on the literature and personal experiences as a psychologist about the elements that lead people to not only make changes in their life but also sustain those changes over the long-term

What I Liked

I had the pleasure of hearing Kottler speak as an honoured guest at my wife’s university graduation ceremony, and he intrigued me enough on the subject of “change” — what we know and what we don’t know — that I bought his book. It was the perfect book for me at this point in my life, as I’ve been wanting to make a significant change that has been holding me back for at least 30 years. I’m great at the day to day goal-setting stuff, but I needed to understand large scale change on a deeper level, and this book was ideal for that education.

At the beginning, I was struck by a central question — when does an alteration in attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, thinking, or feeling “count” as change, and how long does it have to last in order to qualify?  » Read the rest

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Big Box Reuse by Julia Christensen (PWBR00115)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 14 2018

Plot or Premise

The textbook-sized book includes ten case studies across America where former big box stores – Walmarts and Kmarts – have been put to new use after the store left or closed.

What I Liked

I was drawn to the premise of the book as I have frequently seen large big box stores in Canada, anchoring malls and plazas, move out and languish empty for a number of years. Sometimes it is a short time and another retailer moves in. Sometimes it is a long time, and it looks like urban blight. Rarely have I seen much in the way of “good news” around these sites, and I was intrigued with the idea of a series of case studies where the stores aren’t just languishing empty, but have been put to reuse.

From a policy perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me was that the stores were not all empty because the store “failed”.  » Read the rest

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