Strands of Genius: Sabbatical Reading Recommendations

Plus: Joey from Friends on doing nothing

Oct 03, 2023

WORKING ON | ~living that sabbatical life~

LOOKING AHEAD

Aug 24-Oct 1 | Koh Lanta, Thailand
Oct 1-5 | Bangkok, Thailand
October 5-22 | JAPAN TOUR!
Oct 22-Nov 4 | Isla Mujeres, MX
Nov 4-Nov 12 | Nashville, TN
Nov 12-23 | Chattanooga, TN
Nov 24-Dec 5 | Isla Mujeres, MX

:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::

On Saturday, we flew from Krabi to Bangkok, and it was a little sad leaving our home base in Koh Lanta after spending more than a month there. We fell in love with so many things during our stay — some things for the first time, and some things all over again, like: the color green, wave watching, beach walking, Thai massages, swimming laps, cycling to lunch, afternoon trips to 7-Eleven to pick an evening snack, open air yoga, tropical flowers, coconut coffee, Thai milk tea, mango sticky rice, reading from the pool, porch reading, listening to podcasts together in the pool, playing dice, and darts, and pool, and of course, watching the sun set. It was nice to have an extended time to do nothing, but we were both getting a little antsy. And still, when it came time to pack up and leave, my heart felt heavy. Even though we’re excited to be in Bangkok, and for our first ever trip to Japan (coming up on Thursday!!), we’re going to miss our little slice of paradise in Thailand… and the whole doing nothing thing ;)

Most of my time spent doing nothing was spent reading. Reading is my favorite doing nothing activity. And it’s also how I tend to spend my travel days — killing time at the airport, or on the plane pretty much always involves my Kindle for me. I read some books that were fun, some that were fine, and some that were truly fantastic. Stories, y’all. Damn, they can getchya. I’ve read almost 50 books this year (currently on book 48), but 20 of those I read in the last two months! And some of my more recent reads were my favorites this year.

So this week, we’re sharing our recommendations from our sabbatical reading with you :)

BTW - I “order” 99% of what I read through Libby, which is the library system’s app in the USA. Some books are immediately ready for download, and others I’ll have to place on hold and wait a few weeks for. But it’s amazing. And then if I love a book and want to buy it to support the author, I’ll buy it and gift it to someone. Win-win! Faris splits his time between Kindle books and paper books. And audiobooks are great too!

This week, we’re especially thankful for:

our entire Koh Lanta trip, but especially Lanta Sands (if you are ever looking for a quiet place in Thailand, it’s only $25-$35/night in low season!) Taelon & Witty & Thai BBQ, an easy travel day, rooftop bars, LED jellyfish, Leo, a cute apartment in Bangkok, delicious sushi, yoga at the Soho House, our upcoming Japan travels, Below Deck & YOU.

:: SABBATICAL READING RECOMMENDATIONS ::

VICTORY CITY by Salman Rushdie (Goodreads)

Rosie says: This was my first Salmam Rushdie book, but it won’t be the last! I was inspired to read it after reading this profile about him in the New Yorker.
Someone more eloquent than me said: “Victory City invites readers to reconvene with Rushdie, the humorist, artist and spinner of grand yarns. It recounts the story of a sorceress and poet named Pampa Kampana, who dreams a whole civilization into existence from magic seeds. Through divine intervention, Pampa lives for more than two centuries, witnessing the city's many victories and defeats. She writes it all down and seals the story in a clay pot for future generations.” Kiran Desai says the new novel feels like a love letter to Rushdie's devoted tribe of fellow readers and writers: "It's a distillation of wisdom. A belief that beautiful words and stories will remain in our memories and whisper through the dream of subsequent generations.”

THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers (Goodreads)

Rosie says: This was seriously one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. A story (or a forest of stories) about and told through trees. It’s beautiful.
Someone more eloquent than me said: “The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.”

TRUST by Hernan Diaz (Goodreads)

Rosie says: First you read one story. And then you realize that was actually a novel. And the novel was about a powerful figure who wants to write an autobiography which challenges the way he was represented in the novel. And then you read his autobiography. And then you read a third book, which is from the perspective of his ghostwriter. There’s wealth. And drama. And it’s so great, y’all. Really imaginative way to unpack a story.
Someone more eloquent than me said: “Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation. At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.”

THE GIRLS ARE GONE by Michael Brodkorb and Allison Mann (Goodreads)

Rosie says: It was written by a lawyer and a journalist, who were working on and covering the trial — and while it’s nonfiction, it definitely reads like fiction. The court transcripts are so insane that I couldn’t stop reading them aloud to Faris.
Someone more eloquent than me said: “On the evening of April 19, 2013, Samantha and Gianna Rucki disappeared. Two of five children born to David Rucki and Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, the teenage sisters vanished in the midst of their parents’ divorce.

The girls’ father, David Rucki, worked tirelessly with law enforcement to search day and night for his two missing daughters, following every lead while raising three remaining children at home. Their mother, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, used her newfound freedom to vacation around the world, abandoning her children. And as the investigation intensified, catching the attention of the media, Sandra also disappeared.” (Goodreads) “A propulsive story from start to end, filled with plot twists and turns. The writing is clean and focused, and seamlessly transitions from storytelling to court transcripts, newspaper articles, and pictures of the main characters. This is reporting at its best, with great clarity of prose and mind.” (Saltwire)

The Girls Are Gone is the true story of two sisters who went missing, the father who kept searching, and the adults who conspired to keep the truth hidden.

BABEL, OR THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE: AN ARCANE HISTORY OF THE OXFROD TRANSLATORS’ REVOLUTION by R.F.Kuang (Goodreads)

Rosie says: I loved this story about how magic is powered by meanings of different words — and through the story, you learn etymology as well.
Someone more eloquent than me said: “A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.” “This is a grim and harrowing novel; many of the characters have poisonous opinions about race, and Swift becomes increasingly embittered. The antagonists are closer to demons than humans, with no nuance, and they do sickening things. Often the allure of fantasy is escape from the real world, but there’s no escape here; Kuang’s use of the genre does not soften real history but sharpens it. Babel asks what people from colonised countries are supposed to do when they reach positions of power – while being set in a time and place where reaching those positions would, in the real world, have been impossible. It is a fantastically made work, moving and enraging by turns, with an ending to blow down walls.” (The Guardian)

HORSE by Geraldine Brooks (Goodreads)

Rosie says: I loved the multi-generational story telling, and the way the author brings you on the journey to discover the interconnectedness of the characters. And! It’s based on a true story!
Someone more eloquent than me said: '“The title of Geraldine Brooks’s new novel, “Horse,” alludes to Lexington: the real and extraordinary late-19th-century Kentucky bay stallion who drives its plot. The subtext, if not the subtitle, is “Race.” Not for the contests Lexington won, though those are recreated in detail suitable for both the sports and society pages, but for the book’s confrontation of relations between Black and white people over the course of two centuries.Valuable legacies can disappear, is the underlying message — for years, this celebrity thoroughbred’s skeleton languished at the Smithsonian, shoved in an attic and marked only equus caballus — even as barbaric ones linger.”

FAKE HISTORY: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World by Otto English (Goodreads)

Faris says: He who controls the past controls the future, so it’s fun to see how much of the history we absorbed as children is wrong by design.
Someone more eloquent than me said: A fun, authoritative and alternative history of the world that exposes some of the biggest lies ever told and how they've been used over time. Much of what we assume to be true or are encouraged to believe to be true is simply wrong. Whether propagated by politicians and think tanks, populists or the media, the family tales of childhood or your Facebook friend's feed – fake history is everywhere and it impacts, ever more, on our modern world.

DAWN OF EVERYTHING: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow (Goodreads)

Faris says: The Davids relish poking holes in the accepted narrative of hunter gather nomad tribes> agriculture>hierarchical capitalism and Hurari and Pinker along the way. New archeological discoveries that aren’t restricted to the wealthiest countries are completely upending our understanding of the timeline and geography of early humanity.
Someone more eloquent than me said: A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

DON’T PANIC: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaimen (Goodreads)

Faris says: Extremely satisfying almost indulgent read if you love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Even now it’s hilarious and remarkable that the plot changes drastically in different media (radio, book, play, tv show, movie/s).
Someone more eloquent than me said: In Don’t Panic!, Gaiman celebrates everything Hitchhiker: the original radio play, the books, comics, video and computer games, films, television series, record albums, stage musicals, one-man shows, the Great One himself, and towels. And as Douglas Adams himself attested: “It’s all absolutely devastatingly true—except the bits that are lies.” Part biography, part tell-all parody, part pop-culture history, part guide to a guide, Don’t Panic! “deserves as much cult success as the Hitchhiker’s books themselves” (Time Out).

TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW: (Goodreads)

Faris says: Beautiful, modern, nuanced and romance but not the way you think. Also, video games. Rosie adds: And you fall in love with the characters, even though they’re flawed. I did NOT want this one to end!!
Someone more eloquent than me said: Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

Honorable mentions include:

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

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:: OUR LAST LANTA SUNSET ::

If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co

@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

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