Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an excellent read--much is common sense but so easy to overlook when trying to establish good habits or end bad habits. I already have used Make it Easy to complete the book. I like to read on the train but lately I get on and am tired. I end up playing a game on my phone or just sit. To finish the book and establish the habit to read on my afternoon ride home, I now take the book out of my bag while still in my office and carry it to the train. It shouldn't be so hard to take a book out of a bag to read, but this ensures I've made it easy to read.

Another idea I've practiced is "the most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become." So my change of eating habits the past 9 months wasn't a diet to lose weight but to be a person who eats mostly healthy food.

The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.

Pair this with The 7 Habits of highly Effective People. The two would set a high school graduate on a good life path.

View all my reviews

Book Review: A Time for Mercy

A Time for Mercy by John Grisham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jake Brigance has been a favorite character of mine since I first read John Grisham in 1993 and will always look like Matthew McConaughey in my mine. A Time for Mercy is classic Grisham and right in his sweet spot as a legal novel set in north Mississippi. (I think every time he's left that topic and location except for some in DC his books fall short--think his attempts at sports writing, Camino Island, etc.)

My one complaint is how quickly the side plots are wrapped up in the last two chapters. Again, classic Grisham.

Written in the same vein as A Time To Kill but not quite as charged. It was a great read for my holiday weekend that kept me up too late on two nights to find out what happens.


View all my reviews