I Am the Ocean: A Pleasant Surprise

When Samita Sarkar emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in reviewing her travel memoir, I initially hesitated.

Here is her description of what I Am the Ocean is about:

The memoir covers a backpacking trip along the east coast of the United States that I took during my early twenties. A Canadian traveler on a budget with a thirst for self-discovery, I slept on couches, buses, and in cramped hostels. I saw beautiful things and met many interesting people, but it was also a time of spiritual searching and personal development for me.

I wasn’t sure. Not another backpacking book! I’d kind of had my fill of those after reading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Susan Jane Gilman’s Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, but my intuition kicked in and I said yes. I am so glad I did - I Am the Ocean was a pleasant surprise.

After Sarkar graduated from the university with top grades she surprisingly can’t find a job. To pull herself out of her jobless funk she uses her savings to travel on a budget from Canada to Miami stopping in NYC, Washington D.C., Savannah and Miami along the way. Not to keep comparing her to Strayed, but her trip was well-planned, she trusted her intuition and used common sense. Though if she had asked me for advice, I would have told her to skip the couch surfing at single men’s apartments. 

I enjoyed her observations of traveling in the U.S., thoughts on Americans and our landmarks/tourist destinations. I also liked that she wasn’t afraid to travel off the beaten path. As a travel tip I’ve never considered visiting Miami, but am now sure it is not a place I want to visit; at least not while staying in a hostel.

I found her assessment of LiveMocha.com (an online community where people who wanted to learn different foreign languages and mark each other’s assignments) interesting: 

Because all good things most come to an end, their competitor, the language giant Rosetta Stone, eventually bought Live.Mocha.com and ran this amazing resource with a thriving community into the ground. (pg. 5)

I recommend this book to any 20-something going through a quarter-life crisis, those who want to learn what it is like to travel on a budget, readers who enjoy travel memoirs or want to read a well-written, light book. I Am the Ocean  would make a great nonfiction beach read.

Personally, I love Samita Sarkar’s writing voice and want to read everything she has written and am heading over to her website to do so now.

Have you read any books lately that were a pleasant surprise?

Note: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review and am an Amazon affiliate.

Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

Motivation for reading:

A few months ago Jessica Smock co-editor of The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendshipand My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Losing and Leaving Friends recommended Gail Caldwell’s book Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendshipin response to my query for a list of her favorite nonfiction books covering friendship.*

What is Let's Take the Long Way Homeabout?

In my post Recovering From the Loss of a Friendship I wrote about reading the book My Other Exwhich was about friendship breakups. This book is also about friendship loss but from losing a friend through the worst possible scenarios – death. Here is the first sentence in the book:

It's an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

Synopsis from Amazon: 
They met over their dogs. Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (author of Drinking: A Love Story) became best friends, talking about everything from their love of books and their shared history of a struggle with alcohol to their relationships with men. Walking the woods of New England and rowing on the Charles River, these two private, self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with cancer.

My thoughts:
I read this book while on a much needed vacation. As I sat outside my rented cabin, I held this book in one hand while keeping my journal nearby. While reading, I took frequent breaks to write and reflect in my journal on my life, my experiences with my own friends and on grief. Here are some of the passages that led to greater contemplation:

I also had my first sense of something central about Caroline that would become a pillar of our friendship. When she was confronted with any emotional difficulty, however slight or major, her response was to approach rather than to flee. There she would stay until the matter was resolved, and the emotional aftermath was free of any hangover or recrimination. My instincts toward resolution were similar: I knew that silence and distance were far more pernicious than head-on engagement. This compatibility helped ensure that there was no unclaimed baggage between us in the years to come. (Pg. 28)

As an ISFJ, I am incredibly conflict adverse, so in most conflict situations with friends, family and co-workers I tend to flee or shut down rather than to approach. In the few situations I have approached I was always rewarded with greater understanding and a better relationship in the long-run.

It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, and epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection. (Pg. 123)

Suffering is what changes the endgame, changes death’s mantle from black to white. It is a badly lit corridor outside of time, a place of crushing weariness, the only thing large enough to bully you into holding the door for death. (Pg. 143)

Then I realized something else they don’t tell you in the instruction books for mourning: that we only fret about the living. I might well grieve Caroline for all my days, but I wasn’t worried about her anymore. (Pg. 174)

The real trick is to let life, with all its ordinary missteps and regrets be consistently more mysterious and alluring than its end. (Pg. 180)

Bottom line:
This book fed my soul more than any book I’ve read this year, so I was surprised to learn other reviewers on goodreads did not care for it. They felt Caldwell spent too much time writing about her own life, her own alcoholism and her dog and not enough about her friendship with Caroline. Perhaps it is because I can relate to both Carolyn and Gail; I am also an introvert, married late, have a former roommate who is an alcoholic and became a dog owner later in life that I loved this book just the way it is. Or perhaps this book came along at a time when I needed to do some soul searching of my own. All and all I enjoyed it and hope to read more of Caldwell’s books.

*Other friendship books recommended by Jessica Smock:

She Matters: A Life in Friendshipsby Susanna Sonnenburg

The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendshipsby Kelly Valen

Friendshipby Emily Gould. This one is fiction, but is about workplace interactions and friendship, as well as career choices and writing. (Hmm... I might make this one a future book club selection)


Have you read Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell? If so what were your thoughts? Do you have a favorite book about friendship?

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Career Reinvention at 52

Today is my Birthday, I am 52 years old.  When I graduated from high school my mother was 42, at that time I couldn't contemplate ever being 42 much less 52.  My goals at 18 were to get as far away from my family farm in western Wisconsin as possible and to live a life as unlike my mother's as I could.  I envisioned my life to be much like my high school French teacher's. She lived, what seemed to me, a cultured life in Madison, Wisconsin and traveled to Europe each summer. Unfortunately my life didn't turn out quite like that.

Instead all I do is work.  When I'm not working I'm thinking about work or not sleeping because I'm stressed about work.  As you may recall last year I didn't use nine of my earned vacation days and this year I'm heading in the same direction.  It is always something - a deadline I am required to meet, an audit that needs my attention or a meeting I am required to attend. This week I went in while sick to calculate commissions that were too difficult to explain over the phone. Part of the problem is my company's A-type work culture and part is my ingrained dairy farmer work ethic. A small dairy farmer never takes a vacation day and has to milk the cows even when sick.

My only plan of escape is to retire early.  If all goes well that will be six years from today.  One of my former co-workers retired early last November.  He too had an over-developed work ethic. As a stress reliever he began counting down his work days until retirement.  Instead of answering the phone with hello he would say "232 days."  The other day while commiserating with another co-worker about our heavy workloads I said, "6 years and 3 days."   He replied, "Don't start that."  He thought our retired co-worker's count down was super annoying.

I don't want to become the annoying co-worker with the bad attitude and besides 6 years is a long time to be miserable.  It is also a long time to never take a vacation day and to work while sick. Plus, I don't think I'm the type of person who could lounge in retirement bliss. I will want to do something. Instead I need to figure this out and somehow reinvent my career. Ever since I started blogging I've had visions of living where ever I want and making a living in some fashion from my laptop. Doing what is the question.

My favorite career reinvention post is James Altucher's The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Reinventing Yourself. He says it takes five years to reinvent yourself.  Here is his recommended five-year plan:

• Year One: you’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to DO.
• Year Two: you know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re Doing every day. You finally know what the monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.
• Year Three: you’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.
• Year Four: you’re making a good living
• Year Five: you’re making wealth

So in my 52nd year I plan to read everything and start to Do.  Altucher claims reading 200-500 books are equal to one good mentor. I'm not going to write about how difficult it is to find time to read.  I love reading, so I'm just going to get busy and read.  I will keep you informed about what I learn.

I also plan to continue my career interview series.  My interviewees have been informative, passionate and helpful. If you would like to be part of this series please email me at savvyworkinggal@gmail.com. 

Have you reinvented your career?  If so, what helped you the most? 

How Not to Feel Guilty When Taking a Vacation

In my post you don't seem happy anymore, I admitted that I did not use nine of my earned vacation days in 2013 – the most ever. This failure to take time off took a toll on me. At the end of 2013 I was lethargic and mildly depressed so much so that my husband pointed out I didn’t seem happy anymore. I vowed in 2014 to get my workload under control, to stop feeling so stressed and to take more time off. To do this I set several goals for myself.

Now that we are more than seven weeks into 2014, I’d like to share my progress:

Re-committing to keeping a gratitude journal:
I have faithfully written in my journal which has evolved into much more than a gratitude journal. I had kept a journal when I was younger, but after the third time someone found and read them (snoopy siblings, roommates and lastly a boyfriend) I tossed them all out and vowed to never write in or keep a journal again. My gratitude journals the past few years consisted of a few sentences some of which were written in code – which I was unable to decipher upon re-reading. My journal writing this year quickly evolved into a full-fledged journal. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I missed journal writing and by how much I was learning from it. One of the themes that stood out was how overwhelmed by guilt I am – especially guilt from not spending enough time with family and friends and for not getting enough work done at work. This has helped me realize that in addition to getting caught up at work perhaps I need to work on eliminating my feelings of guilt.

Control over possessions and time:

Buy what I need and get rid of what I don’t
Another reason I had so many unused vacation days last year was because my husband who had a strong suspicion he would be laid-off for a few months in 2014 refused to take a real vacation. His company allows him to roll-over 200 hours of unused vacation time, so he banked all 200 hours. Sure enough he was laid-off in early January. The old me would have immediately shifted to under-buying and survival mode upon hearing this news. Instead, I reminded myself we had planned for this and that he will be getting a full pay-check for the first five weeks. Then he will be eligible for unemployment. Plus, we do have a sizable emergency fund. So I allowed myself to continue buying what I needed and to not let myself waste energy stressing about this.

My husband’s lay-off comes with a welcome surprise:

In years past, in addition to working on Saturdays during January I would come home and have to clean my house. This year with my husband home all week he cleans the house. In addition, he runs errands, prepares the meals and takes care of our dogs. Not having to think about these things frees up my brain power so I can focus more at work and get more done. Kerry at Breadwinning Mama was so struck by my comment about this on her post trying to hang with the boys in the office she included it in her post the invisible task list. 

Teach and delegate:

I tried to delegate to one of my employees during January – actually it wasn’t really delegating since I was requiring her to complete her portion of the year-end work rather than me doing it for her. This didn’t go well. She immediately became stressed and fought every step. Instead of looking things up herself – which she is capable of doing - she was constantly in my office asking me to look things up for her. She would then ask the same questions over and over. I began wondering if she isn’t experiencing early stages of dementia. Finally, I told her she had to write my answers down because I didn’t have time to keep repeating myself. It was a struggle, but she did manage to complete her portion of that work.

I asked my boss if I could hire a part-time person in 2014. Of course he said no, instead he prefers to have everyone work overtime through-out the year. He must have discussed my request with our President because on two separate occasions our President commented out of context that he did not want to add additional staff to my department. 

I still can’t be out of the office without everyone having a meltdown:

Last week, I stepped out of the office for three hours to attend a seminar with one of our VP’s. While at this seminar our VP received a text that I needed to call the office immediately; an employee needed an obscure license number for one of the states we do business in. I told them I had no idea where to find this number and that I’d look into it when I returned. When I got back not only did I have three voice messages from three different employees asking for this number, there was a message from my husband informing me someone from work had called our house looking for me - they needed a license number. Guess what – the manager at the office in this state did manage to find this number without my help.

I take my first vacation day of the year:  

The worst thing about my husband being off this time of year is that I am too busy at work to take a vacation with him. One of the things he wanted to do while off was to meet with our financial planner who likes to see the two of us together. I picked a Friday after the audit and told him to make an appointment - I would take a vacation day. Then during a meeting the day before I was to be off, our President expressed displeasure that I had not completed and distributed our departmental financial statements. In the past, this conversation would have prompted me to cancel at least a portion of my planned vacation day. Knowing how much I needed this day along with realizing how disappointed my husband would be, I decided to continue with our plan. That night I wrote in my journal:

I will not feel guilty

 

This is easier said than done, I tried my best to stay in the present and enjoy my day, but every now and then guilty thoughts of work would pop into my head. Then that night as I was reviewing my journal, I came across my previous week’s to-do list. I realized I had accomplished every item on that list and then some. Completing those departmental financial statements are on my to-do list for next week. By reviewing each day’s entries I was actually surprised by how much work I had completed. This snapped my out of my funk - I don’t need to feel guilty. I then plotted out my to-do list for next week and was happy to realize I should have plenty of time to get all of my major projects done. 

I then set a goal for my department to be completely caught up by April 1st. I created a weekly plan that I will present to our staff on Monday. Perhaps, by setting goals and communicating them to the department there will be less stress for everyone involved.

In summary, to not feel guilty when taking a vacation I need to select a time-frame that is not disruptive to my department - long week-ends work the best, create a to-do list then not worry about projects that are not on the list and avoid checking email or answering questions while off – more than one of my previous vacations have been spoiled by answering email.      

How do you keep from feeling guilty when taking a vacation? 

What does “lean in” mean for you?

This month The Savvy Reader Book Club is reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Today is the first in a series of posts I plan on writing though out the month inspired by the book.

What was Sheryl Sandburg's motivation behind Lean-In?

When Sheryl Sandburg graduated from college in 1991 and from business school in 1995 her entry-level colleagues were a balanced mix of male and female. She saw that her senior leaders were almost entirely male, but she thought that was due to historical discrimination against women. She thought it was only a matter of time before her generation took their fair share of leadership roles. But with each passing year fewer and fewer of her colleagues were women. More and more often she was the only woman in the room. 

She feels the problem is two-fold:

External barriers erected by society
Blatant and subtle sexism, discrimination and sexual harassment.
Too few workplaces offering flexibility and access to child care and parental leave.
Men having an easier time finding mentors and sponsors who are invaluable for career progression.  
Men are promoted based on potential while women are promoted based on past accomplishments.

Self-imposed internal barriers:
Lacking self-confidence.
Not raising our hands.
Pulling back when we should be leaning in.
Internalizing internal messages we get throughout our lives – the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, and more powerful than men.
We lower our expectations of what we can achieve.
We continue to do the majority of the housework and childcare.
We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet.
Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions.

Sheryl’s argument is that getting rid of the internal barriers is critical to gaining power.

In the introduction of Lean-in she writes:

I am writ­ing this book for any woman who wants to increase her chances of mak­ing it to the top of her field or pur­sue any goal vig­or­ously. This includes women at all stages of their lives and careers, from those who are just start­ing out to those who are tak­ing a break and may want to jump back in. 

This book makes the case for lean­ing in, for being ambi­tious, in any pursuit. (pgs. 9-10) 

She then promises to provide adjustments and differences we can make within ourselves to reduce self-imposed internal barriers in subsequent chapters.

I recently watched a news program where a group of women were talking about leaning-in. Every one of them felt they couldn’t possibly lean-in to their careers more than they currently were doing. They were completely tapped out. After reading most of this book I can’t help but wonder if they’d actually read the book themselves or if they were just responding to the hype. I also wonder if they had thought about what leaning-in actually means to them.

For me leaning-in no longer means doing whatever it takes to get the corner office. (Actually I have a corner office – it is kind of small though - but it does have a window with a view of our back parking lot.) I also make a decent salary, but am not paid nearly as much as a man would be paid in a similar position. At this stage of my life I don’t want to lean into my career. I want to lean-in to my life. I want to a second career that is more meaningful and less time consuming than the one I have now. 
 

The example from the book that resonated with me the most is the one where Larry Kanarek manager of the Washington D.C. office of McKinsey and Company gathered his employees together for a talk.

He explained that since he was running the office, employees came to him when they wanted to quit. Over time, he noticed that people quit for one reason only: they were burnt out, tired of working long hours and traveling. Larry said he could understand the complaint, but what he could not understand was that all the people who quit- every single one- had unused vacation time. Up until the day they left, they did everything McKinsey asked of them before deciding that is was too much.

Larry implored us to exert more control over our careers. He said McKinsey would never stop making demands on our time, so it was up to us to decide what we were willing to do. It was our responsibility to draw the line. We needed to determine how many hours we were willing to work in a day and how many nights we were willing to travel. If later on, the job did not work out, we would know that we had tried on our own terms.  

Counterintuitively, long-term success at work often depends on not trying to meet every demand placed on us. The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately - to set limits and stick to them. (pg. 126)

Wow did that hit home. I am one of those people who doesn't use all of my vacation time. Even with my recent bunion surgery I worked from home four of the eight days I was out of the office. At the end of this year I will probably have at least two weeks of unused vacation – ouch. One of my fellow male managers called me out on this. He said I work so much that it is now expected. He strongly encouraged me to break this cycle and begin taking care of myself. He uses all of his four weeks of vacation each year, upper management complains when he is out of the office, but he does it anyway. He does make himself available for questions via phone and email while he is out, but he doesn’t actually sit down and work.

For me leaning-in has to involve setting limits and learning to stick to them without feeling guilty

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

Are you reading this book? What are your thoughts so far? What does “lean-in” mean for you?

Continuing to Struggle with Work-Life Balance in 2012

While reflecting on 2012, I reviewed my post What Worked in 2011: Learning to Slow Down and Take Care of Myself and was surprised by my final paragraph:

I want to continue discovering who I am. Hey I turn 50 this year it is about time. I had another bad week at work then was strongly encouraged to go in on Saturday (its year-end). While sitting in my office feeling miserable, I decided it is time I get serious about figuring out what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I had a similar experience this year. I am losing three vacation days I never got around to using, my boss expected me to work yesterday (Saturday), and told me I would work on Christmas Eve day (a company holiday) if he told me to do so. My co-worker who overheard this conversation thought my boss had been joking, but it left me feeling disgruntled and guilty for not working more. When I stumbled upon my post from last year I realized nothing has changed in a year and my work-life balance may actually be a little worse.

Here are a few of the work struggles I faced this year:

Making a "Big Mistake" at Work

SWG Coffee Social: Job Disillusionment

How not to Lose Your Cool While Your Manager Screams at You

I'm 50 Years Old and Still Can't Think on My Feet

I did have a couple of positive experiences:

How to Be More Confident at Work

Want to Motivate Your Employees? Appreciate them

And I attempted to make improvements:

Joining Classy Career Girl's Networking Challenge

"Be Strong!" Challenge

Why I am Cleaning My Desk

Be Strong Challenge: September Update

Unfortunately all of my challenges ended in failure:

Networking Challenge:
I gave up on the Networking Challenge after I was stood up for an interview and received a couple of rejections.  I am bringing this one back in 2013 with a new focus. 
 
Push-up challenge:
I have tendinitis in my elbow and had to stop doing push-ups.  I am now experiencing so much pain I can barely lift a coffee pot.  It is disappointing to accept the fact I will never have a strong upper body, but after hurting myself for the 4th time I think I have finally learnt my lesson.  For 2013 I will listen to my body and stick with exercise routines my body can handle - Zumba and Turbo Kick.

Cleaning my desk:
Fail.  I had a clean desk until I went on vacation in October. I came back to a mess and it has remained that way ever since.  I have started a new routine - going in early which has helped.  It is nice to be in before others are there to bother me and I am not nearly as tired as when I work late.

Stopping the snacking:
This is a fail.  Once I am tired and under stress I lose all self-control and have actually gained five pounds since I went on vacation in October.  All I can do is start eating better again in January.

In 2012 I did say no more often, but the things I said no to - spending time with friends, going to the gym and volunteering - are all things I enjoy and help contribute to my work-life balance.

What should I do?
Working too many hours has been my company's culture for over 50 years.  My predecessor who retired after 35 years used to work both Saturdays and Sundays.  She was widowed at a young age and needed to support her family of five. (She was also incredibly underpaid.)  My boss has always worked too many hours and never uses all of his vacation time, so he expects his employees to do the same. 

I was "networking" with a colleague who started her own business ten years ago.  She feels her biggest career mistake was staying at a company too long.  Once you earn a reputation with a company it is almost impossible to break out of it without leaving and starting over somewhere else.  She earned the reputation (single with no children) as the employee who was available to travel and spent the majority of her time on the road.  By starting her business she can now set her own schedule and choose the clients she wants to work for.  She wishes she would have had the courage to start her business two years earlier than she did.  She suggests I start over at a new company that has a culture more in tuned to work-life balance.

I am still not too keen on continuing to work in accounting, but for the time being it does pay the bills.  I do know I will be bringing back my "Be Strong!" Challenge in 2013 with a vengeance. Other than that I am pretty sure I will still be working too many hours at my current company next year at this time.

How do you maintain a work-life balance? Do you have any suggestions for me?

If you like this post you may also like:
Accountants are required to work 45+ hours per week
How does your pay stack up against the salary guides?
My career as a tax accountant

Non-Fiction You Can’t Put Down

While searching for non-fiction books to take with me on my recent vacation, I came across a list of "Non-Fiction books You Can’t Put Down" at my local library. Since Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books was at the top of the list I decided the list deserved a second look.  Here are my thoughts on the other selections:

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer :
Krakauer writes an inside account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a horrific storm.  This book has been on my reading list for several years, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment to read about mountain climbing gone wrong.    Previously, I read and thoroughly enjoyed Krakauer’s book Into the Wild and am sure I will get around to this one eventually.  

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
The library list describes this book as Informative and funny without being disrespectful, the author investigates what happens to bodies after death when donated for medical research transplants and forensic science.  Though the book sounds interesting, I was not in the mood to read about dead bodies at the time.

Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss:
In 1891, 24-year old Marie Sklodowska moved from Warsaw to Paris, where she found work in the laboratory of Pierre Curie, a scientist engaged in research on heat and magnetism.  They fell in love.  Their work was revolutionary and deadly.  Here is the enthralling story of their lives, work, and deaths.  This book sounded intriguing and I've added it to my TBR list.


Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Why did the peoples of certain continents succeed in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples? Why weren’t native Australians, Americans or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond has written a book exploring his theories in answering these questions.  I’ve read this one.  It was readable, entertaining and thought provoking.  If you haven’t read it and are interested in social issues I recommend reading this one.

In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall
This is the best-selling classic that tells the story of Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees in the wild. This sounds like a great read for my BE Strong reading challenge I will be undertaking in 2013. I would like to read a couple of books about strong women and think this one might be a good selection.

                  Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry
Perry a Wisconsin native returns to his home town of New Auburn Wisconsin and writes a book about the year he spent restoring an old truck and falling in love.  This book is the reason I now take four or five books with me on a vacation. I read it while on a camping trip in western Wisconsin with my husband who spent the trip trying to convince me we should relocate to the area.  I had grown up on a farm in western Wisconsin and had spent the first 18 years of my life plotting how to get as far away from the area as possible.  The last day of our trip it rained, my husband took our vehicle to go fishing and there was nothing for me to do accept sit under a screen tent and try to keep my book as dry as possible while reading.  The more I read, the more annoyed I became about the prospect of moving, camping in the rain and reading this book.  I didn’t finish it and haven’t been able to bring myself to open another book written by Perry since.  This is a perfect example of reading a book at the wrong time.


True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall by Mark Salzman:
In 1997 author Mark Salzman paid a reluctant visit to a writing class at LA.’s Central Juvenile Hall a lockup for violent teenage offenders, many of them charged with murder.  What he found so moved and astonished him that he began to teach there regularly.  In voices of indelible emotional presence, the boys write about what let them to crime and about the lives that stretch ahead of them behind bars.  We see them coming to terms with their crime-ridden pasts and searching for a reason to believe in their future selves.  Insightful, comic, honest and tragic.  True Notebooks is an object lesson in the redemptive power of writing.  Wow, I hadn’t heard of this book prior to seeing it on the list.  This one sounds like a must read.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel. I listened to this book on audio several years ago and although I frequently see it listed on lists of nonfiction books that read like fiction I wouldn’t include it on a list of my favorites. I‘ve often wondered if I missed something by listening to the book rather than reading it.  Despite not being overly enamored with the book, I did add visiting Savannah to my bucket list.

The Physics Book: From the Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection, 250 Milestones in the History of Physics by Clifford A. Pickover
A richly illustrated chronology of physics contains 250 short, entertaining and thought provoking entries.  In addition to exploring such engaging topics as dark energy, parallel universes, the Doppler effect, the God particle and Maxwell’s demon, the book’s timeline extends back billions of years to the hypothetical Big Bank and forward trillions of years to a time of quantum resurrection. I am not interested in reading about science, so I will be skipping this one.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick:
A fresh and extraordinarily vivid account of the voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony.  From the Mayflower’s arduous Atlantic crossing to the eruption of King Phillip’s War between colonists and natives decades later, Philbrick reveals a fifty-five year epic, at once tragic and heroic, that still resonates with us today.  One of my nonfiction reading friends read this book and highly recommended it, so after seeing it on this list I decided to take it with me on vacation.  I didn’t get around to reading it while in California, but did so after returning home finishing it the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was a perfect November read and an eye opener into what really occurred during that period in history.  I was both appalled and disgusted by the brutality the English (especially the religious Pilgrims and puritans) subjected upon the Native Americans. Philbrick pulled the book together for me with this paragraph: 

It is easy to mock past attempts to venerate and sanctify the Pilgrims, especially given what their sons and grandsons did to the Native Americans. And yet, we must look with something more than cynicism at a people who maintained more than half a century of peace with their Native neighbors.  The great mystery of this story is how American emerged from the terrible darkness of King Philip’s War to become the United States. (Pg. 397)

If you don't care to read this book, but would still like to learn more about the real Pilgrims please see Talkin' Turkey: What Travel Taught Us About the First Thanksgiving on the Huffington Post.
Have you read any of the books listed above?  If so, what were your thoughts? Do you have any non-fiction recommendations you think should be added to the list?

Please Note, I am an Amazon Affiliate

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Reading 'The House of Mondavi' by Julia Flynn Siler Enhances My California Wine-Country Vacation

I’ve written before about how I try to match my vacation reads to the setting I am visiting. So when a friend recommended I read Julia Flynn Siler’s book The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty for my upcoming trip to California’s wine country, I quickly put this book at the top of my vacation reading list.

Book Synopsis:
A scandal-plagued story of the immigrant family that built—and then lost—a global wine empire Set in California’s lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, The House of Mondavi is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corp.’s twenty-first-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama. A meticulously reported narrative based on more than five hundred hours of interviews, The House of Mondavi is a modern classic.

Thoughts:
Though the Mondavi family business is wine, the focus of this book isn’t wine or wine making, it is the Mondavi family, their family business and the business of wine. Since I work as an accountant for a family-owned business, I found much in this book I could relate to. I especially enjoyed reading about what works and more importantly what doesn’t work in a family-run business. In addition to office politics, family politics are also at play. Here is what Alan Ferguson, Rainier Brewing Company’s chief executive, had to say after meeting with Robert about Rainer’s backing of the Robert Mondavi Winery:

Was sibling rivalry fueling Robert’s drive to build a bigger operation? Or did he simply need a deep-pocketed investor if the winery was to keep its creditors at bay? As the head of a family enterprise himself, Ferguson was no stranger to the emotional undercurrents that influence so many business decisions. (Pg. 88)

This is what Dr. Grundland, a psychiatrist hired to advise the Mondavi family and employees on how to improve their relationships with one another, observed:

What became evident through the sessions was that a destructive triangle had arisen among Robert and his two sons. Just as Rosa had intervened to protect Peter, Robert often stepped in to try to defend Timothy in dealing with his older brother, Michael. Yet at the same time, as long as Michael and Timothy continued to fight with each other, Robert could remain the key decision-maker. It was a pattern that other entrepreneurs also struggled with, consciously or unconsciously, as the time came for them to pass control to the next generation: Were they sabotaging their successors in an effort to hold on to the reins a little longer themselves. (Pg. 196)

I enjoyed all of the business aspects of this book; from Cesar Mondavi’s building of the business, to Rosa Mondavi’s estate planning, Robert Mondavi’s succession planning, the implications of the Robert Mondavi Winery becoming a publicly traded company and the economic impact decisions such as building a Chilean winery, a deal to promote fine wine at Disneyland and Robert Mondavi’s large charitable commitments had on the business.

Reading this book prompted several interesting discussions while on vacation:

With a Sonoma County business owner:
After reading about Robert and Margarit Mondavi’s five million dollar home in Napa Valley I mentioned to a Sonoma business owner that the homes and wineries I had seen in Sonoma County were much smaller than I had anticipated. Upon hearing the Mondavi name this person went into a rant about how Robert Mondavi and his family had ruined Napa, their family feuds were shameful, and their excess spending including their large homes and lavish parties were deplorable. In her opinion, Sonoma County was fortunate Napa’s excesses had stayed in Napa.

With a winery owner’s niece:
When I mentioned my conversation with the Sonoma business owner to a winery owner’s niece, the niece adamantly disagreed. She had met Robert Mondavi at one of his lavish parties when she was a young girl. She remembered him as a kind, funny, little man. She felt he had done more to promote “wine education” than any other winery owner and that the American wine industry would not be what it is today if it hadn’t been for Robert Mondavi. She thinks The Robert Mondavi Winery still provides the best wine education in Napa. See: Robert Mondavi Winery is the place to go for your Napa Valley Wine education. 

With a former Opus One employee:
At an Alexander Valley Wine tasting, our wine host mentioned he had started his career as a distributor for Opus One. Opus One, the Napa Cabernet blend Robert Mondavi made in partnership with the Rothschild family of Bordeaux, France, my ears perked up. I had to tell him I was reading The House of Mondavi. He then relayed a story about the time he had met Robert Mondavi. It was a hot summer day, he had purchased a sandwich at a gas station and not wanting to eat in his car had moved to a private picnic table on the Mondavi property.  While enjoying his sandwich, he saw Robert and his wife Margarit walking towards him. He was sure he was going to be fired when Robert bellowed out, “What do you think you are doing?” The employee stood up, offered his hand and said, “Mr. Mondavi it is so nice to meet you, you’ve paid my electric bill for the past 20 years.” Robert and Margarit then sat down and the three of them were engaged in conversation for the next two hours.

Conversations about the craft of wine-making:
Even conversations where I didn’t bring up the Mondavi name benefited from having read this book.   I understood the small wine-maker's frustration when he talked of creating premium wines for famous big-name wineries without receiving credit. And the wine-maker whose family winery was purchased by the Silicon Valley millionaire who was more interested in profits than making quality wine.

Bottom Line:
The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty may not be a book for everyone. The boardroom and family back-stabbing along with the corporate takeover may be a bit too boring for some reader’s taste.  This is a book for someone interested in the wine industry or in business, especially family-run businesses. For me, I enjoyed The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty because it was the perfect read to enhance my vacation experience.

If you enjoyed this book you may also like Sweet and Low: A Family Story another book I've read about a family-owned business, although this book is written by Rick Cohen, the disinherited grandson instead of an unbiased author, who at times he is clearly bitter.

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Not Understanding Hertz Refueling Policy is a Costly Lesson

We received an excellent deal on a car rental booked thru priceline.com for our recent trip to California.  Hertz accepted our bid for a full-sized sedan at $30 a day with unlimited mileage.

When we arrived at San Francisco’s SFO airport the Hertz rental counter was crazy busy. After waiting in line for at least 30 minutes, our Hertz representative was courteous and attentive.  She recommended we sign up for the Fuel Purchase Option (FPO) which she felt was the best refueling deal. We would purchase a full tank from Hertz at a price competitive with local fuel stations (currently around $4.49 a gallon) at rental.  When we returned the car the fuel tank should be as close to empty as possible, since we’d already pre-purchased a full tank of gas. Despite Clark Howard's advice to never prepay for fuel, the thought of not having the hassle of refueling before our return flight was appealing. Yes we both agreed, sign us up for that.  We were told our vehicle, which had been upgraded to a Jeep Liberty, would be ready in about an hour and we would be asked if we wanted the FPO option at that time.

After only 10 minutes, our vehicle was ready.  We were handed our Hertz contract along with the keys to the Jeep Liberty and were whisked off to the stall where our rental awaited us.  It was only after we had left the airport that I realized we were not asked about the FPO option.  Perhaps that nice Hertz representative had automatically signed us up for it.  Our rental contract said something about fuel and services at $9.29 a gallon. Something was not right, we would have to call and get clarification the next day.

Unfortunately Consumer Cellular, my cell phone carrier, does not have coverage in northern California.  I thought for sure I had checked into this before we left, but after losing cell phone coverage shortly after leaving San Francisco I realized I had not.  We decided to operate as if we had purchased the FPO option and talk to Hertz about the incorrect fuel price in our contract when we returned the car.

We filled up our Jeep Liberty's fuel tank the day before our vacation ended.  We had one final day of sight-seeing in addition to the two hour drive from our inn in Cloverdale to the airport.  We would attempt to return the vehicle with an empty fuel tank.

Traffic through downtown San Francisco on our return trip to the airport was terrible.  Plus, our GPS did not recognize streets that were closed due to construction or those that did not allow for left turns between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm on weekdays. After many GPS recalculations, we arrived at SFO’s Hertz car return with no time to spare.  My husband did a quick check-in as I grabbed our bags.  We reviewed our final Hertz bill as we ran to our terminal.  We were charged an additional $9.29 a gallon for 9.75 gallons of fuel totaling $104.66.  

We barely made our flight.  If we had stopped to refuel the rental car, we would have surely missed it.

Obviously the exorbitant refueling charge is mostly our fault for not understanding Hertz’s policy, but I feel Hertz should have verbally informed us of the refueling option stated in our contract when they gave it to us.  With each trip we take my husband complains more about the “travel” part of traveling and how he doesn’t want the hassle any more. Hertz you are not helping my case.

How about you?  Have you ever misunderstood a vehicle rental company’s refueling policy? Or do you follow Clark Howard's advice and always return your rental with a full tank of gas?

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Memorable Vacation Reads

In the Oprah Magazine article 7 books that made a difference to Yoko Ono, Yoko tells us she travels a lot. She says:

So when I arrive in a city, I like to go to good local bookshops and make a selection based on how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. The book I pick usually seems to have a definite karmic connection!

I don't have Yoko’s luxury of having a driver to take me to a local bookshop when I travel, so I need to figure out what my book karmic connection will be before I leave home. For an avid reader like me, a week away from home without a good book can be disastrous and has happened. So when packing for a major vacation, I now take at least four books with me.

When I think back to my most memorable vacation reads, my favorites have been when I got the karmic correction right.

What do I look for in a vacation read?
Ever since I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, while camping on an island in the Chippewa Flowage, I try to match my vacation reads with the setting or place I am visiting.

A book that perfectly matched subject with setting was:
A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean by Melinda Blanchard and Robert Blanchard which I read while traveling to the Caribbean island Anguilla. The book recounts the Blandchard's experiences including the obstacles they encountered while opening their upscale restaurant in Anguilla. The book provides insights into Anguilla’s culture and its people.

Last year while planning my vacation to Montana, the decision of what books to take was a tough one. I had already read Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West about the Lewis and Clark expedition and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, one of my all-time favorite reads, about several retired Texas Rangers and their adventures driving a cattle herd from Texas to Montana; both would have made perfect selections. In desperation, I asked Sarah at Citizen Reader for recommendations. She came up with Laura Bell’s Claiming Ground. This autobiographical book takes place in the hills of Wyoming where Laura worked as a sheep herder and cattle rancher. She examines her life and the choices she made. It was a good book to read while sitting on a picnic bench in Yellowstone surrounded by the Wyoming Mountains.

Nonfiction does not always make a good vacation read:
Generally I have found getting the karmic connection right for nonfiction (my preferred genre) to be tricky. A nonfiction book that is a great read at home can seem down right depressing and out of place on vacation. For example, I received a comment from a reader here telling me she was setting Gail Collin's book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present aside ‘til she wasn’t on vacation anymore . It was making her too angry. I have found in order for nonfiction to work as a vacation read it has to either relate to the place or setting I am visiting or read like fiction.

I read Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession on my recent vacation in Northern Wisconsin. It was an enjoyable book that read like a novel. This book had been on my reading list since Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness mentioned Susan Orlean is a narrative nonfiction writer she enjoys. After she included The Orchid Thief on her reading list for her hypothetical class Journalists who say "I", I decided to take it with me. While reading I kept thinking this book would make an ideal selection for someone traveling in South Florida.

If I can’t come up with a book that matches the setting or place I am visiting, or a nonfiction book that reads like a novel, I look for a really good story. My most memorable fiction read is Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin. Atwood’s book which includes a story within a story reads like sheer poetry. Reading it under a palm tree on a beach in St. John was the ultimate karmic connection.

I also find historical fiction to be a safe vacation choice. Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl was a memorable beach read from my Anguilla vacation.

And lastly, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help was my favorite vacation read from last month’s up north vacation. I am usually disappointed with popular mainstream fiction, but this book was outstanding. The book is about black domestic servants working in white Southern households in the early 1960s. I was enjoying it so much; I remained outside in our vehicle reading long after we had returned to our cabin.

What do you look for in a vacation book? Do you have a memorable vacation read?