September Mini-Reviews: Three Nonfiction Greats

I’ve read these three great nonfiction books lately, and I thought I’d review them together!

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg

For anyone who has ever grieved the loss of another human or has/is supporting someone going through grief, this book is wonderful read. Heck, you don’t need to be grieving or close to a griever to like it, either. It’s a really amazing glimpse into what it really feels like to lose someone as close to you as a spouse, and Sandberg provides some truly enlightening insights into the life of someone who is deep in grief. I was rather sad that I had gotten this book from the library, because I wished I could write in it, highlight quotes that I loved, and keep it. I may have to buy a copy, just so I can read it again and do that! Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

“Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. It comes from gratitude for what’s good in our lives and from leaning in to the suck. It comes from analyzing how we process grief and from simply accepting that grief. Sometimes we have less control than we think. Other times we have more. I learned that when life pulls you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again.”

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs

This memoir was written by Nina during the years before she died from cancer. She writes about fighting the cancer, about losing her mom to cancer during her own fight, and about navigating life as a sick person. While this book was really good, it was hard to read, because it was just very sad. It was hard reading about her decline, knowing that she died before the book came out. Riggs was an artist, and a lot of the chapters in her book are really artistically written. I had to go back a couple of times and reread several of the paragraphs to really understand them and soak them in. Overall it’s really deep and very, very good – you just have to be in the right space to read it.

The Moth Presents All These Wonders

If you’ve not listened to The Moth radio show, you’re missing out. It’s all about storytelling, and there are so many amazing stories to listen to. They’re just stories of people – of love, of life, of pain, of wonder. This book is a collection of a bunch of those stories, and I loved reading every one of them. That said, as good as the book is, listening to the stories gives them something that just reading them can’t. The voice and emotion of the person telling the story just gives a dimension that reading the story can’t. Overall, though, recommended!