Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results : An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

This book by James Clear is another one of those I thought really useful for shifting your mindset about how to change your behavior. Focusing on systems, he tells lots of stories about how making tiny changes--i.e., setting the barriers very low--can begin to move you in desired directions. He talks about the "compound interest" of 1% changes, either in negative or positive directions. These tiny changes don't often result in visible results in the short term but have profound effects in the long run.  If you want to do something, make it obvious, make it easier to do, change your environment to support the new behavior. Lots of straighforward advice.
The Wall Street Journal sings the books praises.

Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness

I went on a self-help binge a few weeks back and checked out several books from the library, signed up with an Enneagram coach, and started French lessons online. Two of the 3 books I checked out were quite worthwhile and this was one of them. By Rick Hanson, also author of Buddha's Brain, Hardwiring Happiness and other popular neuropsychology based books, this offers ways to build up the parts of the brain that will give you stronger resources to deal with everything from daily slights from a co-worker to profound loss. I consumed this book in small doses and appreciated that he jumps right in with a chapter on Compassion--for oneself. The following chapters address Mindfulness, Learning, Grit, Gratitude, Confidence, Calm, Motivation, Intimacy, Courage, Aspiration, and Generosity. I took lots of notes. This is a wonderful book for those of us who are hard on ourselves, as most of us are to some degree. He talks about the evolutionary tendency of the brain to focus on the negative aspects of our experience and offers a strategy to balance that out and even shift the balance to more positive evaluations of self and others. He talks about how to set appropriate boundaries in our relationships while at the same time opening ourselves to closeness and having empathy for their struggles. I'm tempted to buy it so I can highlight all the good things he has to say!

The Never Game

I have read several of  Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme thrillers in the past. This is the launch of a new series starring protagonist Colter Shaw, a largely itinerant single man who chases rewards for lost family members. He is not a bounty hunter and not interested in chasing down criminals, just in finding people whose family members want them found. He makes no guarantees about returning them if they don't want to come back. He was raised by two highly educated parents who at some point abandoned their regular lives and chose to live off the grid in California, home schooling Colter, his older brother Russell and younger sister Dorion. They learned survival skills, including, after their father became dangerously paranoid, how to survive their father, Ashton. Russell had already left home but came back to look after his siblings when their mother had to go help a sick sister and was afraid to leave them with their father. Shortly afterward, Ashton was found dead. Colter is an extraordinary tracker, able to follow the tiniest of signs to find his quarry, and yet he has never been able to find his brother since then and fears that Russell had returned and killed Ashton; but new clues have come to light suggesting there was a real danger to Ashton from outside forces. That storyline runs in the background as Colter is pursuing his most recent case, a missing college student in Silicon Valley. Because of her age, the police are not much interested in the father's claim that she would not just run away or disappear.  It takes Colter less than a day to find evidence indicating that the young woman was kidnapped, but the local detective isn't interested in Colter's theory or evidence. So Colter, while trying to sideline an ex-boyfriend who wants to help, goes looking and finds her. She was being held in an empty warehouse and left with 5 objects to help her possible escape before the kidnapper returned to kill her. With the help of an attractive professional gamer, Colter determines that the clues correspond to a popular online game called The Whispering Man. After a second kidnapping that ends in the death of the victim, Colter tries to figure out why someone would use the game to kidnap and harm people. There are a lot of red herrings, but Colter's success in finding the first two victims gains him credibility with a different detective when a 3rd victim is kidnapped. There is a fair amount of time jumping between Colter's early life and the time when Colter got involved in the case and the current situation where he is trying to rescue the 3rd victim, but you'll be able to follow and unable to put this down and you get drawn into the elaborate plot. There's a short review in The Guardian, a rave in Publishers Weekly, and a balanced hearing from Kirkus.

The Map of Salt and Stars

This novel by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar personalizes a years-long story we have been hearing about on the news--the Syrian civil war and the resulting refugee crisis. Her protagonists are both young teens, one the heroine of a story from the 12th century, Rawiyah, told to the other, Nour, by her father. Rawiyah disguised herself as a boy so she could apprentice herself to a famous map maker (an actual historical figure, al-Idrisi) and see the wider world. She accompanies him and his other apprentice on a journey through often-dangerously disputed territories of the Middle East as he seeks to create the first accurate area map at the behest of his patron, King Roger of Palermo. Nour's father used to tell her the story of Rawiyah in installments when they still lived in New York City--but that was before he died of cancer and her mother moved Nour and her two older sisters back to Syria to be closer to family.  However the Syria her parents knew has gone and been replaced by one experiencing escalating war and destruction. Their home in Homs is bombed and they are forced to flee with nothing but a few dollars. They end up paralleling the route of Rawiyah in their quest to find safety. Both tales are full of hardship, profound love and loss, as well as heroism and determination. The language is beautiful, the thoughts about life often profound-- and that is the one element that does not really seem to fit with the occasionally very juvenile behavior of Nour. Each section of the book that deals with the country they travel through is introduced by a poem in the shape of the country. So worth the read, however, because refugees fleeing inhumane conditions  have become such a big part of our national conversation. Reviews from The New York Times, Kirkus, and The Seattle Times.

The River

I have read both The Dog Stars and Celine by Peter Heller, the latter being one of my all-time favorites. His language is so beautiful and his characters and settings so vividly drawn that the plot is almost secondary, except it isn't. All his books have drawn me in and pulled me along, and this last one especially so. Spoiler alert, this book does not have an altogether happy ending.
Our protagonists are two college friends from Dartmouth who instantly bonded over their shared love of the outdoors, fishing, and reading. In fact, between their junior and senior year, they have worked as outdoor experience instructors and are now taking a canoe trip up the Maskwa River in the remote Canadian wilderness. They are an excellent team, each bringing their own strengths, although they are different in temperament and stature. Jack is wiry and more cynical. Wynn is a big man with a trusting nature and optimistic outlook. Although their combined experiences and knowledge prepared them well to deal with a raging forest fire they discover is headed their way, their differences contribute to fatal mis-steps when they encounter some bad people. As they are heading north, trying to keep ahead of the fire they encounter a couple of boorish older men, drinking heavily who seem uninterested in their warning about the fire. In a weird morning fog, they hear a man and woman loudly arguing on the shore but are unable to locate them to warn them. Later they encounter a man coming down river alone, saying he lost his wife--perhaps the couple they overheard. Both young men immediately retrace their steps to try and find the missing woman, but only Jack is suspicious of the circumstances. When they do find her, seriously injured, the urgency to get to a town several days away increases dramatically. Glowing reviews are provided by The New York Times, Kirkus, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and The Guardian.