My Musings – Page 30 – Not your ordinary tales

Viola Davis’s Memoir: An Unforgettable Journey of Resilience and Redemption

Viola Davis's memoir, "Finding Me," is a captivating glimpse into the life of an incredible woman. If, like me, you've been a long-time admirer of her acting prowess, this book takes you on an even deeper journey into her personal life and the challenges she's overcome. What's more, listening to her narrate the audiobook adds a whole new dimension to the experience. A Childhood Marred by Hardship From the very beginning, Viola immerses us in her tumultuous childhood. Poverty, substance abuse, and violence were daily companions in her …

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Mrs. Watanabe: How Ordinary Japanese Housewives Shook the World of Finance

In the late '80s, Japan's economy was booming, second only to the United States. Real estate and stock market prices were soaring, but as history often teaches us, what goes up must come down. In the '90s, Japan's economic bubble burst, leading to a devastating recession. It marked the beginning of Japan's "Lost Decade." To kickstart the economy, the Bank of Japan decided to lower interest rates, encouraging borrowing and spending. Yet, even with these low rates, the Japanese economy was still struggling. Ordinary people saw little return on …

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Arlene Blum: Breaking Trail

From Molecules to Mountains - A Trailblazing Journey of Self-Discovery and Resilience It's the gripping memoir of Dr. Arlene Blum, where every chapter is like a page-turning adventure. She's the kind of pioneer who blazed trails for future generations, and her journey embodies the spirit of exploration and discovery. This woman is an absolute force of nature. A Rocky StartArlene grew up in an orthodox and dysfunctional Jewish family in Chicago. She had a pretty restricted upbringing. A casual comment from her Aunt Shirley "That child …

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Book Reviews

1. Incurable Optimist: Living with Illness and Chronic Hope This was such an incredible memoir of a college-going girl - Jennifer who learns that she has a chronic autoimmune condition where her kidneys are failing. What follows is the next two decades of her battle with this disease, ranging from scans, biopsies, dialysis, and multiple transplant surgeries, and how all of this impacted her and her family. With the constant uncertainty of getting a kidney transplant, infections, motherhood, staying in hospital for months, …

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Self-Sabotage

I have an embarrassingly long list of things I promise myself to do and then not do it -- sometimes even intentionally. I’ve had different labels and often legit reasons/excuses for them. But it never dawned on me, that collectively this is called self-sabotaging. Credit goes to a recent book I read. Self-sabotage is the behavior and thought patterns that stop you from doing what you want to do. I’ve been on an auto-pilot mode where a situation triggers some internal dialogues resulting in subconscious behaviors and all this happens so …

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How do you read books?

One friend saw me reading 'Made to Stick' which is the only book where I’ve used an entire packet of sticky notes and then some more. He asked, so what were the top learnings from this book? And I went blank. He asked again, seriously, not even top three or one? I went blank again. My mind chatter as much as I can recall was - I’ve to come up with an intelligent answer summarizing the best points.I’m not good with summaries, I’m more of a story person.How can one summarize a great book?Why haven’t I re-read this book?I should have …

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