Join the Rethink Book Club!

For book recommendations that make you think a bit differently

"Can you recommend any great books?" 

Welcome to the Rethink Book Club! I love recommending books to people - and now I want to do the same for you.

Every fortnight, I will recommend a book that has made me think or feel differently - a mix of fiction and non-fiction. It will include new releases, classics, and some gems slightly off the beaten track. In each review, I’ll explain why I’m recommending a particular book and give three words that best sum it up. I’ll also share some of the thoughts, ideas, and annotations that came to me while reading.

I hope to help you discover books you might not otherwise pick up (and if you want to, read more!)

My whole career, I've been reading and scribbling notes on books that have taught me new things. I’m hoping to create an experience here on Substack that will feel like walking into a beautiful old bookshop and being handed a book by someone who genuinely cares.

I’d love for you to join fellow Rethinkers in this new community! To keep receiving book recommendations, you’ll need to be a Rethink Member.

My first recommendation is Lost and Found by Kathryn Shulz. It's a beautiful memoir about losses of all kinds - from a random sock to a loved one - and discovery. I'd never thought about how the opposite of loss is the bittersweetness of finding. 

Three words that sum up this book: tender, intriguing and comforting.

Through her personal journey of her father's death, Shulz shares a profound and intimate account of how loss and discovery are inseparable. It’s not a book about grief but renewal.

The etymology of the word 'loss’ is fascinating. Shulz writes:

“The verb “to lose” has its taproot sunk in sorrow; it is related to the “lorn” in “forlorn.” It comes from an Old English word meaning to perish, which comes from an even older word meaning to separate or cut apart. The modern sense of misplacing an object only appeared later, in the thirteenth century; a hundred years after that, “to lose” acquired the meaning of failing to win. In the sixteenth century we began to lose our minds; in the seventeenth century, our hearts.”

Wow.

I love the distinction she makes between two different types of losses: ‘recovery’ and ‘discovery.’

My book is full of scribbles of parts I love including this quote:

"The most enduring problem of love, which is almost the most enduring problem of life, is how to live with the fact that we will lose it."

If you loved the Salt Path by Raynor Winn or Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad (both beautiful memoirs), I think you'll enjoy this book. 

I laughed, cried, and couldn’t stop thinking about this book after I put it down.

If you choose to read (or have already read!) this book, I’d love to know your three-word reviews.