I'm a curious writer and compulsive traveler. My lifelong goal is to communicate the message “You don’t have to live your life the way others expect.” From 2002-2015 I went to every country in the world, chronicling the journey on my blog The Art of Non-Conformity. At first I thought the blog would be just about travel, but along the way I began meeting lots of people interested in living unconventionally. Ever since, I've been writing books, hosting events, and avoiding traditional employment by any means necessary.
I wrote...
Gonzo Capitalism: How to Make Money in an Economy That Hates You
This is a book about power and money, and how the perception of both has shifted in recent years. I wanted to tell the stories of people who’ve used new platforms and systems to startling effect, from “sleepfluencers” to blockchain video game players and much more.
In short: read Gonzo Capitalism to learn how to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Such a powerful book! It's all about the danger of failing to choose, but presented in such a way that the lesson seeps in slowly. Perhaps an ultimate example of "show, don't tell."
I first read it during a difficult season in life where I too felt like I was facing two mutually exclusive options. Each of them foretold a loss and made me sad to contemplate the absence of the other. I then went back to the book a few years later for a second reading and found it just as powerful but less sad—perhaps because I'd improved in my ability to make clear choices.
From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, this is the novel Lionel Shriver wrote directly afterwards. The Post-Birthday World is an unflinching account of the choices that unfold before us and what our decisions really mean.
Irina McGovern's destiny hinges on a single kiss. Whether she gives into its temptation will determine whether she stays with her reliable partner Lawrence, or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player.
Employing a parallel universe structure, Shriver spins Irina's competing futures with two drastically different men. An intellectual and fellow American, Lawrence is clever and supportive,…
It's no exaggeration to say this book changed my life. I read it when I was briefly home in the US during a four-year stint as an aid worker in West Africa. It caused me to think deeply about the next stage of life, which involved going to every country and eventually starting a blog that became a whole new career.
If you've read any other "life design" books in the past two decades, one way or another the authors were influenced by Barbara Sher. Go back to where it started!
Cindy Fox was a waitress. Now she’s a pilot. Peter Johnson was a truck driver. Now he’s a dairy farmer. Tina Forbes was a struggling artist. Now she’s a successful one. Alan Rizzo was an editor. Now he’s a bookstore owner.
What they have in common—and what you can share—are Barbara Sher’s effective strategies for making real changes in your life. This human, practical program puts your vague yearnings and dreams to work for you—with concrete results. You’ll learn how to
• Discover your strengths and skills • Turn your fears and negative feelings into positive tools • Diagram the…
This was the book that set me off on a decade-long journey of reading (and re-reading) Murakami. Along with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, another favorite, I've re-read it at least twice.
So why is it about thinking differently? Because the book is written so differently! If you've read any recent speculative fiction, the author likely owes a debt to Murakami and his wondrous approach to narrative storytelling. You'll get lost in a bizarre, beautiful quest that takes on all sorts of twists and turns.
A very early (published in 1908!) example of the personal development genre. Some of Bennett's recommendations may seem a little outdated now, but the concept of "you should work on improving yourself, and here's how" still feels fresh and original.
A secret publishing dream of mine is to update this book and introduce it to a new generation of readers. But don't wait until I'm able to do that (or until someone beats me to it). Jump in now and read the original.
2019 Reprint of 1910 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. In the book, first published in 1908, Bennett addressed the large and growing number of white-collar workers that had accumulated since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. In his view, these workers put in eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, at jobs they did not enjoy, and at worst hated. They worked to make a living, but their daily existence consisted of waking up, getting ready for work, working as little as possible during the workday, going home, unwinding, going to…
Emmanuel Carrère just thinks differently! Sometimes described as the #1 non-fiction writer in France, this deeply personal memoir from him touched me with its sensitivity and embrace of awkwardness.
I don't know how else to describe it except to say: wow, this guy truly lives. I feel jealous of him as a writer, yet also different enough that it doesn’t really bother me. Instead, I just end up inspired.
'As a writer, Carrere is straight berserk' Junot Diaz
In this non-fiction novel - road trip, confession, and erotic tour de force - Emmanuel Carrere pursues two consuming obsessions: the disappearance of his grandfather amid suspicions that he was a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War; and a violently passionate affair with a woman that he loves but which ends in destruction. Moving between Paris and Kotelnich, a grisly post-Soviet town, Carrere weaves his story into a travelogue of a journey inward, travelling fearlessly into the depths of his tortured psyche.
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives…
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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