Alex Hutchinson’s Endure: A Book Review

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Alex Hutchinson’s Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance is a must read for humans in general. Yes, the book is focused on athletes, specifically those who run, bike, and swim (as well as those who coach them or love them), but the book provides genuine insight to the human mind, to motivation, and to our unique ability to accept and endure both pain and life in general. Hutchinson, who has written on endurance sport for years, explores every facet he can. Not only does he quote both scientific studies and real world examples, but he packages the data in an easy to read format that is both relatable and informative. He tracks adaptations, exceptions, and oddities—and in doing so allows a reader to carry over information into both endurance sport and life.

To do so Hutchinson follows the stories down their rabbit holes. He climbs Everest through those that have in order discuss oxygen deprivation and the central governor, he examines a long walk in the desert to discuss dehydration. More importantly, he digs into the science in a meaningful but approachable way. For example: Hutchinson notes how if one is mentally taxed, they are then going to see an increase in perceived effort to do what is normally relatively easy. So could school alter an athlete’s performance in an evening track meet? Of course. But the idea goes deeper when he integrates that a complex video game might mirror the rigors of a work day, that playing video games all day might leave you in a mentally taxed state and thus alter your performance when it comes to an evening event. Play eight hours of video games at a track meet and you might find that the 3000-5000 meter event feels a lot harder. Likewise, a tough workout, a mentally arduous set of intervals, might interfere with the ability of an athlete to give a coherent interview or study for their final exams. These facts sit right on the surface of a book that explores everything from oxygen to pain to hydration to motivation in a must read.

Paul Beatty’s The Sellout: A Book Review

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Paul Beatty’s The Sellout has no boundaries, no qualms, and holds no punches. In a spirited satire, Beatty tackles race relations through the eyes of his black protagonist, sometimes called Me, others Master, others a sellout. This man, a son of a sociologist who performed racial experiments on him until he was gunned down by police in a headline worthy event, is skilled farmer and pillar of the community known as Dickens. Yet Dickens sees itself wasting away—its identity is being pulled, it is being neglected as a blight on society, and the numerous racial minorities within it are wallowing in generation poverty. Thus Beatty takes on the issues the American society often ignores, and in doing so invokes every bone of Swiftian satire with a modern twist.

The narrator goes the extra mile in every facet of his life. He re-segregates schools, paints borders around the seemingly forgotten municipality, takes a slave who himself feels beholden to the fact that society has forgotten him and his life on The Little Rascals, and in the process, he restores prosperity. Written in the age of Obama, Beatty seems to challenge the idea of the post-racial society that Trump has detonated with a nuclear missile. Racial problems still exists, and in Beatty’s creation, the white children are bussed to the now highly performing school in the ghetto only to watch a black man douse himself in white paint. It is here that the unnamed black Supreme Court Justice, known by all to be Clarence Thomas, calls out a radical thinker for setting his race back. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will wonder as you walk through this satirical beauty.

Sukey and Elizabeth Novogratz's Just Sit: A Book Review

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Sukey and Elizabeth Novogratz combine to bring forth the meditation focused: Just Sit: A Meditation Guidebook for People Who Know They Should But Don't (click the title to view on Amazon). Released in late 2017, the book serves as an odd combination between self-help, meditation history and meditation for dummies. While the last term may suggest something negative, instead I see it as the old technology books that would allow the scared novice to learn Microsoft Windows or Adobe Photoshop in an easy to approach, straight forward manner. The Novogratz do just that, and while they often repeat the text’s title mantra of “just sitting” they work hard to make their points.

Loose, informative, and easy to read, the authors lay out the what, how, why, and when of meditation. Focusing on health and happiness, noting that like running, this movement will one day take western countries by storm, they graphically and quickly lay the foundation of the process. At times silly, at times serious, they illustrate away and even go as far as to give a step-by-step program in which the reader goes from just sitting for a couple minutes a day, and over weeks finds themselves meditating for a more substantial period of time. Yes, the goal is twenty minutes a day, but like long and strenuous periods of exercise, they recognize that people will land where they land, but that the act of sitting (to meditate) will be enough in the end. All-in-all, if you love the idea of meditation, a sound mind, and a thankful life, give the book a read. It will motivate you, get you thinking, and maybe even compel you to build a meditation haven in your domicile.

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Author Links: justsit.com   HarperCollins