12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

Title: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

Author: Jordan B. Peterson

Genre: Non-Fiction, Psychology, Philosophy

Back in 2012, psychologist Jordan B. Peterson was browsing through Quora, answering questions that interested him. When he came upon the question "What are the most valuable things everyone should know?", he answered with a list of short adages that he thought to be true and worth sharing. His answer quickly gained popularity on the website, and many others shared that his answers resonated with them. "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" includes a dozen of the adages originally shared on Quora, along with an extensive and thought-provoking discussion as to how he finds each truth to be evident. A major theme in all the rules is the idea that our world is full of chaos and part of living and thriving in this world is learning how to bring order to this chaos. He also discusses the importance of taking responsibility and charge of your life, raising children to be people that other people like to be around, and taking time to stop and appreciate the good things of your life (even if they're small).

Each page had something that made me stop and think, and it does takes a while to digest all the information packed into each sentence. Don't let this deter you from reading the book, though! While it was definitely a heavy read, it was a worthwhile one nevertheless! You'll no doubt leave having learned something about yourself, or at least having thought more deeply about your life and the reality of the world we live in.

- Sarah P.

Check out 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos @ the library.

Headlong by Michael Frayn

Martin and his wife and baby daughter have arrived at their country home so Martin, a philosopher, can work on his book. But, when he visits the neighbors and sees that they have recently purchased some old paintings at a rummage sale, he convinces himself that they have unknowingly purchased the missing work of an old master. Rather than inform the neighbors of this possibility, he plots and connives to get the painting for himself. Avarice takes control of his life. His obsession causes him to neglect his book and aggravate his wife (an actual art historian). To prove his own hypothesis, he delves deeply into the study of the paintings of Pieter Brueghel, a Dutch painter of the sixteenth century. And he undertakes some ridiculous shenanigans (including the promise of an affair with the wife of the art buyer) to acquire the painting. Just when it seems that Martin has successfully acquired the painting, a series of disastrous events bring him crashing (literally) back to reality.  Farcical humor makes this book uproariously funny. 

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Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich

Barbara Ehrenreich uses common sense, critical thinking and a sharp sense of humor to analyze the positive thinking philosophy that influences so much of American society.  Tracing positive thinking back to a nineteenth century backlash against the dourness of Calvin-based religion, she examines the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalism and the Christian Science of Mary Baker Eddy.  Moving into the twentieth century, she scrutinizes the self-help books of authors like Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, also the belief that attitude can deter the progress of serious disease and the prosperity theology of preachers like Joel Osteen. Finally, she traces our country’s current problems to the wide-spread reliance of politicians, CEOs and managers on feelings and intuition instead of the analysis of hard facts their counterparts used in the past. She concludes that positive thinking is not a benign philosophy which improves our attitude, but rather the purposeful turning of a destructive blind eye to signs of trouble we should be heeding. 

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