Category: Book Notes

Daniel Kunitz writes an interesting testimony (I can’t think of a better description for it) in the prologue of his book, Lift: Fitness Culture, from Naked Greeks and Acrobats to Jazzercise and Ninja Warriors (HarperWave, 2016). He describes his life as a magazine editor living in New York City:

At our worst, my cohorts and I at the magazine emulated the wasted waif aesthetic of the times, the nineties, and gave no thought to improving or maintaining ourselves physically. We thought of ourselves as living the life of the mind…

p. 4.

I’ve taken more time to do this series than I intended. One reason has been the chaos of life (one small consolation: that has included getting my manuscript closer to publication).

Another reason is that I didn’t realize how much I hate reading and note-taking at the same time. It seems similar to a parent who misses “being there” with his children because he is too busy taking pictures. Alternatively, reading the book is more pleasant than figuring out how to best write about it. So I haven’t, up to now, gotten past the introduction and one chapter, even though I’ve read into Rule 6.

When I promised to “blog through” Jordan Peterson’s bestselling book, I intended to post about the chapters in order (as well as do it faster than I have been).

For reasons I may explain later, I am not following my plan. I’ve read through chapter 3 and this post is about that chapter. I’ll write about chapters 1 and 2 later.

Chapter 3, “Make friends with people who want the best for you,” is pure gold. If it was the only chapter in the book it would still be worth the price.

I almost skipped this because of some Exodus chronology mistakes on the first page (for one: the writer says that Sinai occurred after the forty years in the wilderness). But I am glad I didn’t.

One book I REFUSED to read while working on my forthcoming introduction to Proverbs was Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Rules for Life. I didn’t want to be influenced by it nor tempted to respond to it.

I am not sure I even knew who Peterson was when I began working on my manuscript. I became aware of him during the process (of course!) and, at one point, when I was studying something Proverbs says about speech and “deep waters,” I noted the theme was in line with the subtitle of his book.