Here are some books I've read over the past few years. While I don't stick to any particular goals on the quantity of books I read over a year, at every point in time I stick to reading at least one book no matter how fast or slow my pace is.
I'll try to write short reviews of books I read, as I tend to forget many of the lessons I learn.
A Review of You Can't be Serious by Kal Penn
November 14th 2021
I knew Kal Penn from the Harold and Kumar series and for his brief stint at the White House, but I knew nothing about his growing up and struggles to break into the entertainment industry as a South Asian from New Jersey. I didn't even know why he bothered to work for the Obama Administration's Office of Public Engagement until I read his childhood dream of contributing to the world outside of acting which evolved from a series of volunteering opportunities.
This inspiring story takes readers from his childhood, descriptions of his grandparents, to the successes in his adult life. Kal Penn is able to tie every monumental activity he has done as an adult to what inspired him as a child. For example, the creation of the super diverse Sunnyside and the disappointment after NBC refused to pump more money in its advertising stemmed from the lack of opportunities for South Asians, and broader, people of color, when he was a student of acting. His passion for service (which led him to volunteer for Obama's campaign) stems from his volunteering trip to India as a teenager as well as his grandparent's stories of joining Gandhi's protests. Most importantly, his general passion for acting is rooted in his elementary school show and tell story of a toy he told the class was remote controlled - which it wasn't in reality - and the Tin Man character he played for the Wizard of Oz play.
Between all the successes were multiple challenges - the first being his community's disdain of their children pursuing anything outside of the traditionally lucrative fields, but his parents still supported his acting dreams. While in acting school at UCLA, challenges included not getting parts in shows or movies because he was South Asian, and most of Hollywood preferred a white cast. Even after being established as an actor, he found unique challenges as an actor just because he had a different skin color from most people. But he triumphed over those challenges and was ultimately able to pursue what he wanted by beating the odds. Overall, one of my favorite biographies I've ever read!
A Review of What Happened to You? by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey
Dr. Bruce Perry is a mental health and brain researcher with decades of experience dealing with children and adults with trauma. My interest in learning about how the brain makes decisions led me to this book at the book store.
The book is formatted as a conversation between Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey - both sharing their personal and field experiences and relating with studies. It is organized in a way that at first describes the bigger picture such as by explaining how children take things in much faster than adults, and then describing specific case examples of children and adults and how they overcame trauma. It gives readers tools to cope with their own trauma, light or heavy, and motivation that those tools have worked in the past. The conversation format makes it easy for someone that doesn't know about the brain's anatomy or other heavy psychological words to understand.
A Review of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography
Reading this book gave me an insight to Benjamin Franklin's thoughts during critical times of his life, at least what were to him. How he was vegetarian for a few years, published Poor Richard's Almanac, studied four languages all at once, helped form a fire company, hospital, university, created electric experiments, and much more that are missing from this short review, all emphatically strike me to learn as much things I can about the world.
When he talked about his 13 virtues and how he trained himself to follow them, they reminded me that learning new things and training oneself to be committed to a set of rules or practices requires patience and attentiveness to all your actions. How he used Junto to spread many of his ideas in "circles" was an ingenious way of creating social change, one that can still be used today but with modern tools.
It seems as if Benjamin Franklin struck the balance between personal fortune and creating social change, as the more wealth and affluence he achieved, the more he would do for the public. Disliking how he did not go to college, he educated himself whenever he could (remembering the times when he would just read books to learn certain languages) and gave back to people in a way that would increase social value; such as by compensating people for their loss of horses or wagons when the military needed them or helping create public institutions such as a fire company, university, or hospital, when he saw the need. I, too, want to implement the idea of social giving when I have the change.