The break over summer gave me the chance to do so,me reading. I do read all year but the amount of time it takes to read a book greatly increases. I’ve just finished two pretty inspirational books, the first was The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner.
I saw the movie, but I knew there had to be some aspects that were more Hollywood than real story. The movie is actually only one year of his life and about a quarter of the book, there is so much more to the story. You can see that from a bad beginning with a abusive step father that Chris had to overcome more than homelessness to arrive at being a multi millionaire who now is helping to expand trade into developing countries. You can see that he learnt a lot from his upbringing and that focused him to be the best at whatever he was doing. It also shows his human failings which is good to see in a autobiography, if the whole book was “look how good I am” it would be a bit unbelievable. If you saw the movie, go grab the book and give it a read.
The second was always looking up by Michael J Fox. This is the follow up to Lucky Man, his first more show biz memoir that covers his early life and up to the diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease. That was a fantastic book and the sequel takes off where Lucky Man left off. It’s not a showbiz autobiography, more of a life after showbiz, life with Parkinson’s Disease and how he started his research foundation, following on with his political activism, exploration of faith and his stories of family life. What I took away from this is his fantastic optimism towards life and his dedicated work towards informing and promoting the research into stem cell research. This can be a little clunky to read, the politics side can bit a bit dry but persevere because the family stories are fantastic at the end.
These two books are quite inspirational, and a fantastic way to get some perspective to start the year.
I’m currently onto the Steve Jobs autobiography, it’s not on the kindle and it’s a big book and will take a bit longer to read. The speed of reading is greatly increased when I can pop the ipad into a bag and open the kindle app where ever I am and read a little.
So, what books did you get into over the summer, anyone else reading the Steve Job’s biography? What should I be looking to read next?
