The Happiest Refugee, Anh Do

I honestly can't remember the last time a book had such an emotional impact on me. The Happiest Refugee constantly had me alternating between laughing out loud and being on the verge of tears.

I almost didn't read it. I'd seen Anh Do on TV occasionally, but never particularly followed his comedy or had any particular interest in him. Also, I don't do memoirs. I tried to read The Long Way Home once upon a time but even the embiggening story of Nelson Mandela couldn't catch my fiction fancy. However, one day I read a positive book review about The Happiest Refugee, so with a Borders gift card in hand, I toddled over and bought it. Little did I know it would be the best $34 I would spend on a book in all of 2010.

It's not exactly a literary tour de force - sometimes there are awkward turns of phrases that highlight the fact that the author is a comedian, not a writer by nature - but it's an absolutely compelling read. Through anecdotes and smaller bite-sized stories of a larger whole, Do tells us about his family's harrowing escape from Vietnam, the struggles of their early arrival in Australia and the career that took him into the loungerooms of families across the country.

When you read the book, you understand the reason for his success. Do is revealed through every word and every page as someone with good sense, keen humour, high intelligence, a lot of determination and even more gratitude. It's an uplifting and positive read that celebrates the richness of life, rather than dwelling on the poor-me aspect that many memoirs tend to do.

Through the funny stories and anecdotes, we're told about the enormity of his love and respect for his mother, his struggles with and ultimate forgiveness for an absent and alcohol-abusive father, and the mark they left on this young Vietnamese boy who would grow up with a never-say-die outlook on the world interpreted through a humorous eye.

Not only is The Happiest Refugee funny and touching, it's also full of (dare I say it) immigrant wisdom. It reminded me of moments when I was growing up, like my dad looking sadly at the vandalism of a public train and telling me, 'Why destroy public properly? It's there for our benefit, so destroying it only destroys ourselves'. I could identify with Do not only in the physical things (both being Asian and growing up in western Sydney), but also in the non-tangibles, like the instilled gratitude towards our adopted country and the desire to give back.

Regardless of whether you can identify with him or not, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. It's the sort of book I wanted to buy as a gift for everybody I know, but three bookstores I went to had already sold out of them. I'm not surprised. Get your hands on it if you can, however you can. You won't regret it.

Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert: book and movie review (also the Great Library Challenge author G)

Eat Pray Love the book

It wasn't the easiest thing to get into and I must admit I would've left it only half-finished if the movie wasn't coming out so soon. However, I'm glad I finished it because the latter half was better than the first.

It's as though Elizabeth Gilbert distilled her personal diary to write this book – it has the intimacy and warmth of someone not holding anything back, but it's also very beautifully written so you know she's crafted her words and stories carefully to bring the best of her experience to paper.

I started off skeptical – after all, it's about a privileged New Yorker running out on her marriage and real life to spend a year in exotic locations 'finding herself' – but I ended up won over. It's not just about her running away, but also running towards. She's seeking something more than herself (God) while seeking to find herself, and it becomes a spiritual journey where, by the end, she discovers contentment and a self-identity that she seems not to have had before. Who can argue with that?

Eat Pray Love the movie

Despite the presence of Julia Roberts and the lush international scenery, Eat Pray Love doesn't really work as a movie because ultimately the story is boring to watch on screen. It's such an intimate spiritual journey that most of the action happens in the interior, which doesn't translate well to an audience who expects a climactic movie experience.

Apart from the breakdown of her marriage in the beginning, there are no major highs or lows – it's all a very linear journey of self-discovery. At times, especially the beginning, the movie felt like a string of 'this is a re-enactment' scenes from a reality TV show – especially the use of that hazy filter and backlighting the first time she goes to Bali. Then the showdown scene between her and Felipe (Javier Bardem) at the end just didn't ring true to me at all. Maybe it's because it didn't happen in the book, but I was totally prepared for them to deviate from the plot of the book (in fact I expected it), but even then the whole scene seemed rather a false attempt to create some dynamic in an otherwise flat movie plot.

My conclusion

I thought that the critics were unduly harsh about the story when the first movie reviews came out, but I can see why they would have come to that conclusion now. In the movie, you don't get the full in-depth experience that you do with the book, so it's easy to overlook the whole thing as the self-indulgent whims of a Western woman.

In fact to be honest, that's how I first felt when the book topped all the bestseller lists and caused such a scene in the book-reading world. I avoided it for a long time and only decided to read it finally because I watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk and thought she sounded awfully wise and well-grounded.

After reading her book, I'm more convinced of that assessment. It is a wise book, full of lessons learned and lots of humour too. She has a great writing voice, and there were a lot of moments that resonated with me as a reader, which I'm sure is why the book was so popular.

Now onto H of my Great Library Challenge. I decided on Matt Haig and wanted to read The Radleys, but the library didn't have it so I'm now waiting for my book to arrive from the Book Depository. Any suggestions for an author beginning with 'I' would be appreciated because Surry Hills library only has a single short shelf for I, which consists of approximately 11 books only. Help!

The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris

You've gotta love this book, at least for the title alone. The idea is a goldmine – who doesn't want to work less hours and make more money? Tim Ferris manages to make it actually sound do-able. The Four Hour Work Week is packed with anecdotes, examples, exercises and step by step instructions on how to become the 'New Rich' - those who work minimal hours and extract maximum enjoyment from life.

There's a lot to be learned from this book, but the standout lessons for me were:

1. Apply the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule)
This applies to so many areas of lives – 80% of our results often come from 20% of our effort – keep doing the stuff that brings the big returns and eliminate the unproductive stuff.

2. Automate
One of the big thrusts of this book is to create a well-oiled machine that can operate even without your presence. If you're required to be on site constantly to keep it going, then it's exhausting and not a good use of your time. If you automate the process via outsourcing or advanced software or whatever, then you free your time and let the cash roll in with very little effort.

3. Set your goals and work backwards to achieve them
One of the exercises in the book asks you to write down in a table a list of all the things you want to be, do and have in 6 months, and the same for 12 months. Then you sit down and work backwards to figure out what you need to do in order to achieve those things, and you start doing them. Now.

This book is a manual of how to set up your own entrepreneurial project or free yourself within the confines of your current job. The practical advice, anecdotes and conversational language made it very easy and inspiring to read. The only thing that didn't work for me was the philosophising in the final section of the book, although I could see how some people might appreciate it.

The Four Hour Work Week is a good read for those wanting to break out of the 9-5, but even more, it's a pure winner for the author.

Spring cleaning my brain with non-fiction

Non Fiction season begins

There are several non-fiction books that have been collecting dust on my shelf or have been recommended to me numerous times and fallen on deaf ears. I'm a fiction girl. I read for escape, not information.

But here's a challenge for the month of September: apart from my book club book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I'm only going to read non fiction to feed my brain and the entrepreurial beast within. My list:

The Four Hour Work Week
Good to Great
Good to Great Social Sector
How to Negotiate Everything
Something from the E-Myth range
One of Zig Ziglar's books

Hmm, obviously this is going to take longer than September. Perhaps October too. Better get started.

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is a rivetting read because it covers a lot of ground: Bourdain's personal journey through drug-addiction to maturation as a chef, his love and obvious passion for food, and the ugly yet strangely charming (in a very crass way) unseen machinations behind the industry of fine dining. And to top it all off, it's written with wit, warmth and honesty that you can't help but appreciate.

He describes his cohorts in the kitchen - those who deliver dishes of utmost perfection - endearingly as:

wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths.

He obviously loves them, loves his job, loves food and is passionate about the industry - and all of that really comes through. Although I started without even the slightest interest in the New York fine dining scene (the book was a gift), Kitchen Confidential gave me a real appreciation for the passion, talent and dedication of those involved in the craft. There's nothing more enjoyable than having a whole world opened up for you by someone who knows all its ins and outs and who can write - absorbingly, engagingly - about it all.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The title is ironic: the author is attempting to write a heartbreaking work of staggering genius and he is wholly self-conscious about this endeavour. This is a rather mammoth book that describes the vulnerable, aching, egocentric and contradictory thoughts of one Dave Eggers, author extraordinaire.

The story in a nutshell is this: Dave's mother and father both die of cancer in separate incidents within months of each other. The older kids - Bill, Beth and Dave - are all grown up, but Toph, the seven year old, becomes the unofficial ward of Dave, who is 22 when he essentially becomes a single parent.

Eggers' writing is almost painfully self-aware. He deserves to be pitied. He wants to be famous. He wants to write something breathtakingly beautiful. And, in his own way, he has. He's a great storyteller and the introduction alone is worth reading for its whimsy, wit and two-fingers up to convention, including a section on 'Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book'. He's the quintessential Gen X'er - if there is such a thing.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius has been compared to the work of JD Salinger, nominated as a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and received a host of laudatory reviews across America. After reading it, you feel like you really know the guy, and you can imagine him receiving it all with a deep sense of deserving such praise while mocking himself for wanting it so much. This is a book in which the author really bares his soul.

A Tale of Three Kings, Gene Edwards

I read this book because it’s written expressly to bring about healing for those who have been injured from leadership in the church context, and for me this was a timely read. It’s a sad but true fact that these sorts of injuries occur, and perhaps are felt more deeply precisely because it’s within the church, and we learn to expect more from church leaders than anyone else.

The lesson is taught in narrative form, going through the three quintessential examples of church leadership in succession: Saul, David and Absalom. Each of the leaders is very different, but the overall lesson is that God is in charge. Gene Edwards boils it all down so you recognise that it’s not about the style of leadership of the type of injury suffered – it’s really a matter of the condition of the human heart. Both yours and the leader at whose hand you may have suffered.

It’s a pretty easy read, especially because of its narrative format, but my only reservation is the very American-drama of the narration. It can feel a little corny at times, but I must admit that it builds the scene perfectly so the lessons really hit home. I learnt that I need to examine my own heart and to truly trust God because He really is in charge, despite how things may look at times.