studiomikarts's reviews
55 reviews

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase by Jane Horrocks, Eoin Colfer, Geoffrey McGivern, Sandra Dickinson, Douglas Adams, Simon Jones, Mark Wing-Davey, Ed Byrne, Lenny Henry

adventurous challenging emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

I could not have asked for more from the conclusion to this radio series 🥰✨ To anyone who may be hesitant due to the posthumous nature of it, I say Don't Panic. Just click play! The involvement of so much of the original cast and crew has ensured continuity, as well as proper respect to the late Douglas Adams. This final installment wraps things up nicely, gives homage to all the events that had transpired during the series until this point, and it may even bring a bittersweet tear to your eye by the end!

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

challenging dark funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

There's so much I could say about The God Delusion that it feels overwhelming trying to think of how to fit it in without my review becoming a book in itself. I'll let my star rating (and my reading status updates) do most of the talking. I LOVED this book. I'm so grateful someone put it in the Little Free Library where I found it! If you're already an atheist, this book can still be an eye-opener, as it was for me. If you're a secret atheist, it could give you the courage you need to stand tall and face the far horizon (paraphrased from one of the most powerful passages in the book). If you're unsure about your beliefs, I also recommend this book to you, as it could give you knowledge and direction that will help you make an intelligent decision. As for religious believers, while I personally don't expect those possessed of blind faith to be persuaded by this book (or any other argument born of reason), why not give it a try anyway? You might be surprised at what you learn, or how you feel after you're done!

The Plant-Based Athlete: The Game-Changing Secret Revolutionizing How the World's Top Competitors Perform by Robert Cheeke, Matt Frazier

challenging hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

4.75

First off, I think this book is worth it just for the amazing vegan recipes in the back. I must have used at least a dozen sticky tabs, marking all the ones I definitely want to try! It's really helpful, too, that each recipe includes the nutrition information. That makes it easier for me decide what to make and how many portions to divide it into, based on my current kilocalorie needs. If you're an athlete of any level (me, I'm just an amateur with the ultimate goal of staying healthy throughout my life) this book will not only provide plenty of vegan recipes on its own--most of which are highly customizable and therefore could be all you ever need--it also names other vegan athlete cookbooks you can turn to for more!

The rest of the book's content is really solid, though I knocked a star off my rating because I would have preferred more science (and more in-depth explanations of that science) to accompany the inspiring anecdotal evidence provided. At least the science that was there was properly cited, plus I had already encountered many of the studies mentioned (and others not mentioned) thanks to my deep interest in nutritional science and its practical application. I was able to believe some of the weaker claims (except the cherry juice thing, that one just did not have strong enough evidence for me) because I already knew other claims definitely had a strong scientific backbone. Another reason for my less-than-perfect rating is that, while the stories of world-class athletes triumphing time and again on their vegan diets were inspiring and confirmed the fact that no one actually needs animal products to be healthy, fit, and the GOAT in their discipline, there wasn't much there in terms of guidance for everyday athletes like me, who have their deepest passions elsewhere (in my case, storytelling) and use health and fitness as a support to those ends.

Despite my qualms, overall I recommend this book to anyone needing that final push to go vegan, especially because it makes a very strong case for veganism actually outperforming other diets on the athletic stage, and it shows that even if we're in the minority, veganism is a HUGE movement. You'll be in very good company! If you're already on board with reducing animal suffering and/or negative environmental impact but you're worried about the classic, and untrue, claims that one simply can't get complete nutrition from a vegan diet, let this book prove that you can be an ethical, ecological, AND a kickass athletic vegan all at the same time! 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quintessential Phase by Douglas Adams

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

If you've gotten this far in the radio series, there's no reason to stop! This installment was not only just as humorous and mind-bending as all the previous ones, it even ended in such a way as to patch up the heart that the Quandary Phase broke 💖 I honestly had happy tears in my eyes at the end. It was so moving! And with all the probability and multiversal stuff that's been thrown around since the very beginning, it was perfectly believable, even if it was different from the original novel.

This ends the material I had some familiarity with (even if I had forgotten most of it). Next, the Hexagonal Phase, which I have absolutely no idea about. I haven't read the book it's based on yet (though I do have it ready in my library!), all I know is that it was posthumously written by another author. I'm actually quite looking forward to it! 

The Deepest Peace: Contemplations from a Season of Stillness by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

3.0

This book accompanied me through an unusual, sleepless night. After I'd finished, the thoughts it prompted helped me remember what it was like as child, to just exist in stillness, to enjoy the dark, the quiet, and the fact that I had nothing better to do than experience them. I was able to fall asleep and stay there deeply.

However, unfortunately, my ultimate experience with the book boils down one of confusion and frustration. The prose was too nebulous and artsy to connect well with a mind deeply-rooted in logic and reason. The many grammar oddities often suggested that the words had been chosen simply because they sounded good, and not for any more compelling reason. Actually, based on my limited knowledge, this kind of writing seems classically Zen.

Allowing for the fact that this is a memoir more than anything else, or perhaps a collection of lyrical essays, the way this book is written isn't necessarily a flaw. It can be seen as a reflection of the author's experiences and personal way of processing them. I can accept that, but it doesn't change the fact that it prevented this book from fully connecting with me. 

Making Friends with the Present Moment by Sylvia Boorstein

hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing fast-paced

5.0

This was a very short and easy read. It only took me a couple hours from start to finish. It could serve as a nice intro to Buddhist mindfulness principles, though because I am already somewhat familiar with them, I can't be sure what the experience would be for someone who has never thought of things this way before. In my case, this book was a light reexamination of these principles from another individual's perspective. It was comforting at many turns, including the passage reassuring the reader that to forgive does not mean what the other party did was ok, it just means your own heart and mind are now free of heavy burdens such as anger or the desire for revenge. The meditations section at the end was also a welcome inclusion. There were only three or four and they all are meant for various different situations (my favorite? the one you can do at any time, without any preparation: "May I meet this moment fully. May I meet it as a friend." I've been actively working on this recently).

If you're interested in reducing the personal suffering that comes from being stuck in the indelible past, or being immobilized by the infinite possibilities of the future, this book could help you stay free within the present 😊

The Black Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon
Did not finish book. Stopped at 33%.

I feel regretful DNFing this book (and the series altogether), but I have to be honest with myself and move on. Life is too short to spend time reading a book you don't enjoy. This series was what got me into gryphon fantasy in the first place, something that has grown over the decades and become a huge part of my life. But I originally read this series when I was in junior high school. I have no memory of that experience, no memory of the story or how I felt about it at the time. I only know that my mind was irrevocably opened to the idea that there are more than dragons and unicorns in the fantasy world.

This marks the second time I've tried to read this book in my adult life and I quickly see now why I reached the halfway point last time and then set the book down for almost ten full years before trying again. For one, the hyperviolence feels arbitrary (gryphons being skinned alive in flight, being tortured gruesomely until they literally beg for death, etc.), a clumsy, over-employed device for establishing the evil of the antagonists. This probably didn't bother me as a young teenager, but it does now. I have much more reading experience and I know the same effect could have been achieved in more subtle and crafty ways. Second, the proper names are a nightmare to keep straight. Perhaps this book is relying on the reader to have read other books in the series, and therefore to know who and what these people, races, creatures, and places are, but I think that's a bad idea in any multi-book series, and especially here, where so many of the names seem to have been pulled out of thin air. They make my mind stumble and have to pick itself up every time they punctuate the text. Skandranon, the chief character, is perhaps the worst. I constantly find myself re-reading the name to make sure it's coming out right in my head. Skandragon? Skrandranon? Standranon? No, Skan-dra-non. It's exhausting to have to read like this! The suspension of disbelief requires a basis in reality. Names like these, that don't seem to be based on any existing naming pattern, become a distracting mouthful and choke the reader, even when they're reading silently.

In my mind, all these years, I never realized what kind of books these actually were, I think. I imagined a book series that opened the world of fantasy gryphons to me, even though I must have read them in their entirety only once. My memory of the junior high school library itself is stronger than my memory of this book, and my memory of this book doesn't fit with the reality, because I imagined it, based on the good thing it did for me, not on the actual contents.

100 Ways To Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever by Steve Chandler

hopeful informative inspiring fast-paced

3.0

Although I did highlight many passages in this book, I found most of the useful material to be the same as that which I've read elsewhere. It served more as an affirmation of my existing motivational habits than a source of new ideas. Perhaps the material would have felt revelationary to me if I had read this book when it was first published in the 90s (which I wouldn't have, since I was only a little kid back then) but the updates that have been made for this third edition just weren't enough to unstick it from that era. This might still be a good motivational read for someone from Gen X or older, who has never tried reading anything like it before, but it didn't do the trick for Millennial me. 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase by Douglas Adams

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

Although I laughed out loud many times while listening to this, including once quite hysterically, the ending left me feeling rather sad! I won't say more, so as not to spoil it, but although (just with the last entry in this series) I have definitely read the book this radio drama was based on, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, I didn't remember anything about it besides the titular phrase and who said it. That allowed me to enjoy this audiobook without any expectations, which is nice when you KNOW you're going to enjoy it, you just don't know why yet!

It goes without saying that I recommend this to everyone following the radio series, as well as Hitchhiker's fans in general. I'll be moving onto the next entry with enthusiasm, and especially with the hope that it will help mend the heart that this one broke 💔

The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance by George Mumford

hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.0

I enjoyed and was so motivated by this book until I reached the last chapter. The overused and untrue line, "There are no atheists in foxholes," completely turned me off. I am perfectly content to accept that the principles in this book are based on Buddhism and therefore have a religious origin and flavor. I am not content to be told that my lack of supernatural belief is a delusion.

Until that final chapter, I found many passages worth highlighting and despite my unhappiness with the book in the end, I still credit it (along with guided mindfulness runs I did through Nike Run Club around the same time) with giving me the push I needed to rise out of the weeks-long depression I was in. I've been living every day much more mindful; the first thought in my head when I wake up is "mindful, mindful," and I find myself naturally able to focus more and stay motivated throughout the day. Interestingly, although this book is focused on sport, I found myself naturally applying its principles to my career, as well.

It's very disappointing that the book ruined itself with a single close-minded notion, but it is what it is. I still benefited from reading it, so it wasn't a waste of time, even if my memory of the book was soured!