Tag: non-fiction (Page 1 of 3)

Make (Sneaky) Art: A drawing workshop with Nishant Jain

January 27, 2026 / Monique

On January 24, Upstart & Crow hosted an evening drawing workshop with Nishant Jain, also known as The Sneaky Artist. Nishant opened the evening with some funny stories about growing up in Indian—and if you were good at math then, of course, your parents wanted you to be an engineer. He was a mechanical engineer, enjoyed that, worked on race cars. Then studied neuroscience and worked with stroke patients. He moved to Chicago and began carrying a sketchbook as a way to journal and observe the foreignness of his new surroundings. He tried stand-up comedy and noted that the wonderful thing about America is that people encourage you to follow your dreams, even when you are not good at the thing you are pursuing. *chuckle* Nishant left his PhD program to pursue being a writer. Oh yes, a great conversation was had with his parents. He tried novel writing and it was too hard. Sketching was a way to get away from words. And that escape, or desperate attempt to find something to unlock the words, became a practice of “sneaky art,” quick sketches in line at a cafe or while observing people waiting for a traffic light.

Nishant shared several quick-drawing exercises and encouraged us to carry sketchbooks, to disrupt the algorthims by not reaching for our phones, to make 30 second sketches, 60 second sketches, maybe do 5-minutes a day. He emphasized that the point of the exercise is to get the dopamine hit by completing the sketch in the set time.

Upstart & Crow had 3 tables set up for participants and Nishant ran a quick tutorial at each table: showing different techniques, like having a foreground, midground, and background; framing a scene; choosing what to ignore vs. what to see; drawing what you see vs. thinking “I am drawing a cat” and it must have all the features I know are part of the word “cat”; how colour or contrast works to direct your eye.

Here’s my quick sketch of the room.

Make (Sneaky) Art is not a how-to-draw book but rather a why-to-draw book. I had a fabulous time hearing Nishant tell his story (full of wit) and practicing his shared techniques. On top of that I got my book signed and found a hidden piece of his art in the shop. What a fantastic event.

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Grab a copy of the book from Upstart & Crow, or your neighbourhood bookseller.

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood

January 14, 2026 / Monique

Gosh, I am totally smitten with this book. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Atwood herself. It’s a total gem, covering Peggy’s childhood—growing up in the bush half of the year—through her teen and university years, the birth of Canadian publishing, and the successive peaks of her family life and career. I loved the intimate details, the inside stories, the quiet “guffaws” included in the recording as she laughs at parts of the story. I love the cover image and the various photoshoot images.

Book of Lives (rhymes with lies) is the finest example of a memoir that I’ve ever read. Snarky, blunt, and full of amusing anecdotes. It’s a love letter to her partner Graeme, a legacy for her daughter and step-kids, and a thank you to the array of people who influenced the formidable woman she is today.

My favourite Atwood works include The Penelopiad (Atwood’s retelling of The Odysseus from Penelope’s perspective) and Hag-Seed (her re-visiting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest). But I’m keen now to read Old Babes in the Wood, The Testaments, The Heart Goes Last, and Stone Mattress. Here are the brief descriptions on the author’s site. Book of Lives reminded me of the many, many Atwood works that I have not yet read.

Whoever convinced Atwood to write and publish her memoir, thank you. It’s full of travel, birding, entomology, canoeing, baking, knitting, gossip, land conservation, creative influences, and family tales. I loved it.

Let’s Talk About Aging Parents by Laura Tamblyn Watts | Book Review

January 12, 2026 / Monique

If you have parents, they are aging. Let’s Talk About Aging Parents is a cheeky yet practical guide to having tricky conversations about retirement homes, dementia, taking car keys away, and the physical and mental challenges most older adults have with aging in place.

The book offers 27 prompts and roadmaps for having clear conversations with your parents and the other caregivers in their lives. There are jokes and asides to help ease the painful realization that none of this is easy. Medical issues often come to mind, but what about toxic sibling relationships? Age-proofing a house seems clear but what if your parents refuse help?

Laura Tamblyn Watts has advice and “plan Bs” for every situation. She’s a voice of reason in the otherwise fraught land of advice books. I starred a lot of paragraphs and made notes in the margin. I also recommended the parents in my life have a copy of their own. If we are all on the same playbook, then they can point out the approaches they would prefer.

Now … to go have those conversations.

At a Loss for Words by Carol Off | Book Review

October 25, 2025 / Monique

Carol Off is the former CBC Radio host of As It Happens and she was one of my favourite interviewers. Off had a way of talking to people and challenging them, while still being respectful. But over her decade and a half of interviews, Off noticed a change (and challenge) in how the right co-opted words like democracy, freedom, truth, woke, choice, and taxes. These six words form the basis for the chapters of the book. Off’s take is wide ranging, from history and politics to the meaningful ways that her childhood and parents informed her own world views.

I very much enjoyed listening to her interview on the On Rights podcast, presented by the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg. Carol Off grew up in Winnipeg, as did I, so I have some bias there.

The premise for At a Loss for Words is that if we lose our shared vocabulary then we no longer have a shared understanding; we cannot express ourselves or converse with those opposed, nor can we in turn understand those who do not share our opinions. I was reminded of a lot of forgotten history nuggets, learned a few political lessons, and enjoyed a lot of fine writing. This book is a keeper. It kept me up at night, and I want to keep it around for reference.

Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish | Book Review

August 26, 2025 / Monique

Shane Parrish’s book Clear Thinking is my best nonfiction read so far, well for personal development. He outlines the four default responses that lead to poor decision making and how to create safeguards and routines to ensure intentional, deliberate choices are made instead. The four, instinctual, defaults are emotion, ego, social and inertia.

When we have an emotional response, it is to feelings vs. facts. Stress, fatigue, hungry, anger can all trigger an impulsive reaction.
When we have an ego response, it is a reaction to threats to our self-worth or status.
When we have a social response, it is to conform to group norms. That need to belong can block independent thought.
When we have an inertia response, it is about resisting change by doing nothing. Maintaining the status quo.

The next part of the book deals with the ways you can overcome those defaults with self-accountability (taking responsibility for your actions, no more “it’s not my fault”), self-knowledge (knowing your strengths and weaknesses and adjusting for your biases), self-control (mastering emotions and taking a pause before reacting), and self-confidence (trusting your abilities and taking action).

The last part of the book is about the decision-making process. Much of this section is similar to an online workshop Shane Parrish ran through his Farnam Street blog. It’s a 5-step process for making better decisions. The first step is actually defining the problem in a clear and specific way to ensure you are solving for the right issue. He has lots of tips for exploring solutions and avoiding binary (do it, don’t do it) options. Then evaluating the options gets full treatment in the book with clear steps on how to gather info (not too much, and from diverse sources but ideally as close to the source of expertise). The execute stage is about when decisions are either reversible or irreversible, consequential or inconsequential and how knowing what type of decision it is can then impact the speed of your decision. And last is learning from your decisions–documenting your process vs. “resulting” or assuming if it worked out that it was more than chance.

Clear Thinking is a great book to read if you are in the early stages of a big decision: do I seek out a higher position, do I invest a chunk of money into something, do I move cities. If you’re in the middle of a big change, then this might be too much, too late in the process. But if you’re interested overall in how you react to the world around you—everything from retorts at work to major decisions—then this is a self-help book mascarading as a business book in the best possible way.

If you like James Clear’s Atomic Habits or Brianna Wiest’s 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think then this is a great follow-up read.

Say Everything: A Memoir by Ione Skye | Book Review

August 15, 2025 / Monique

Ione Skye is a British-born, American actress who made her film debut in River’s Edge then hit fame by starring in Cameron Crow’s Say Anything. She was in Wayne’s World, Arrested Development, and a ton of other film and tv productions. Say Everything is her second book.

One of the early nepo-babies, before that was a term, Ione Skye is the daughter of folk legend Donovan Leitch and model Enid Karl. Her brother is “Dono” Leitch, a musician and actor, who also modelled in the famous black and white CK ads of the 1990s and later married (then divorced) Kirsty Hume. Ione starred with John Cusack, Matthew Perry, Madonna, and Keanu Reeves, plus she was friends with River Phoenix, Robert Downey Jr., the Zappa family, and Mick Jagger’s daughter Karis—and there are lots of stories and details about hanging out with these fine folks. Ione also dated the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s frontman Anthony Kiedis (there was quite an age gap, and he was on quite a lot of heroine) then later Adam Horowitz of The Beastie Boys. You might think this is a name dropping exercise but the audiobook is narrated by Ione Skye and it’s like hanging out with a celebrity who knows everyone you had a poster of in high school.

This is a memoir about coming-of-age in the 1980s and 90s, surrounded by drugs and music, friends with absent fathers, insecurities, and a lot of money. It also feels kind of lucky that Ione Skye made it to functional adulthood. I had a lot of fun listening to this one.

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest

May 23, 2025 / Monique

This isn’t your typical front-to-back read. Brianna Wiest’s 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think is a curated collection of reflections on purpose, emotion, identity, and intentional living. Each essay offers a sharp, sometimes spiritual, sometimes psychological nudge toward greater self-awareness. While the essays are standalone, a rhythm emerges—one that pulses with practical insight for anyone navigating adulthood, burnout, relationships, or meaning-making.

Published in 2016, this is an oldie but a goodie. I enjoyed all the essays, even the ones not directly applicable to this stage of my life. There are tons of mantras, lists, and thoughtful, grounded, and resilient approaches to common life scenarios. And yes, there is repetition in the essays but, as I mentioned, this is a pick-it-up and flip-it-open anywhere type of read.

Here are a few of the recurring life lessons:

Understand your emotions, don’t suppress them. Emotions are data, not directives. Learn to hear the lesson the emotion is conveying. And it is good to self-regulate but terrible to suppress. (Watch the Disney film Inside Out.)
Habits shape your identity. Change comes from what you do every day. Structure actually creates the freedom. (read Leah Goard on time management or Atomic Habits by James Clear)
Let go of who you should be. A lot of suffering comes from our assumptions or the perceived expectations of others. (check out Mel Robbins and the Let Them Theory)
Discomfort is a signal, not a stop sign. Growth is not comfortable. Don’t wait for certainty. (be like a hermit crab, get out of a tight space by growing and moving to something bigger than you)
You are not your thoughts. Cognitive distortions (like catastrophizing or black-and-white thinking) can quietly sabotage your well-being. (Write down your negative thoughts. This separates them from you. It’s quite freeing. Or, give your brain a name and talk to it. “Get it together Nicky.”)
Relationships are mirrors. What you dislike in others is often what you dislike or fear about yourself. (Judging others? Reflect on your own unresolved stuff. Learn from it. Check out Marcus Aurelius on judging others)
Stillness is not laziness. A life well lived is not measured by output alone. It’s a chaotic world, leave room for creativity, day-dreaming, and stepping back to see the larger picture. (Read some Stoic philosophy)
Your perception of reality is created by the focus of your attention. (Stop body scanning for anxiety or pain. Consider the stories you tell yourself about how an event is going or whether you like your job. Practice gratitude, hold on to happiness longer.)
Boundaries are acts of love. (Check out Dr. Becky on boundaries. They are something you set and maintain, they are about your actions not someone else’s.)

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think is best read with a pencil in hand and space to pause. It’s not a book to race through; it’s a resource you return to. There’s repetition, yes, but also reinforcement—and in that, a kind of recalibration. If you’ve ever journaled your way out of a rut, or needed a mental reset without a full life upheaval, Wiest’s collection is a reliable reference for a life well lived.

You’ll like this read if you like Brianna Wiest’s other books (The Mountain Is You), or people like Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle Is the Way), James Clear (Atomic Habits), Mel Robbins (The Let Them Theory), Brené Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection)—all share a focus on personal growth, resilience, and achieving one’s potential, often exploring themes of overcoming challenges, building better habits, and navigating emotional experiences.

Breath by James Nestor | Book Review

March 16, 2025 / Monique

Breath follows James Nestor’s journey to understand his own obstructed airways and how it is that humans evolved from having perfect breathing and straight teeth to being chronic mouth breathers with crooked teeth and sufferers of snoring, sleep apnea, asthma and other illnesses. The answer I took away was that soft foods (cooked and processed) had a negative impact on chewing and jaw development, which affected the shape of our palette and airways. Stress, along with these evolutionary changes, affects our ability to have deep nasal breaths, and we have developed patterns that have us involuntarily holding our breath or breathing too fast or too often.

Nestor outlines the connection between breathing and health as he takes readers on his own journey of breath research.

My two takeaways: 1) chew more and more often, 2) breathe 5 1/2 seconds in and then 5 1/2 seconds out as an optimal breathing pattern.

And apparently, the left nostril is your parasympathetic nervous system and the right is the sympathetic nervous system. You can mindfully trigger fight-or-flight as a way to warm up your body (plug the left and breath through the right). Or you can mindfully trigger a calm state by using the left only.

James Nestor has a number of resources on his website and youtube.

If you liked Outlive or Good Energy, this is another great addition to that library of health titles worth reading.

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin | Book Review

December 28, 2024 / Monique

The Creative Act promises to be an inspiring look at the work of the artist and how anyone can connect with their own creativity. Bollocks. I really expected more from Rick Rubin. He’s legendary and yet there are very few anecdotes about his music producing days, there are a handful of exercises minimally described, and overall it is a boring read.

The packaging is lovely. I own a print copy. But the first few chapters were a slog. I thought listening to the audiobook might be better, given that he’s a music producer. Nope. Alas, there is no path illuminated.

I did enjoy the chapter on Habits and another on Collaboration. Aside from that, is it the bestseller nobody read? Or does it resonate with people who are not naturally creative? Did I miss something?

Outlive by Peter Attia | Book Review

December 5, 2024 / Monique

Outlive by Peter Attia is one of those bestsellers that you cannot avoid. Originally published in March 2023, Attia made the rounds on the podcast circuits, published any number of guest articles, and appeared on multiple talk shows. But I don’t begrudge him the success (2 million copies sold so far). The book is an in-depth manifesto on increasing your health span (healthy years of life). It’s not just about longevity. Attia really wants people to live better, not just longer.

The first half of the book looks at each of the 4 horsemen: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease (i.e., Alzheimer’s), and Type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunction.

The second half of the book outlines practical steps that anyone can take to improve their own life and ideally avoid things that increase risk of one or more of the four horsemen coming for you.

The key takeaways are:

Modern medicine is not so modern. It is great at dealing with infection and trauma. But we wait too long to treat chronic disease. Instead of looking at biomarkers on a continuum and addressing issues in advance of blood work or other issues falling outside the guidelines, we wait, until it’s too late to reverse track.
Blood work “standards” or the range for healthy blood work is a shifting scale. It’s a standard based on what is “normal” today in the population, not what is actually healthy.
Exercise is under-rated and we should really be thinking like centenarians. To open a jar at 90 or carry your groceries down the block at 80 or to hike up a hill at 70 — you really have to think about how active you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. If you can’t do it now, there is no chance you can at 90. Attia has a ton of information on how to approach fitness.
The feverish cult-like behaviour around food and diet needs to dial down. A lot of the food adjustments people make are based on studies done on fasting studies in mice, for example. Many studies do not translate to human subjects. Attia calls out many of these studies and outlines how his thinking on the role of food has changed.
Sleep should be taken seriously. We haven’t evolved to not need sleep for a reason. It’s critical. Attia has a number of terrifying anecdotes about life as a resident, doctor, surgeon and why we dismiss this necessary state of being.
Mental health is the last issue Attia addresses in the book and all I can say is that it is a miserable life you do not have good emotional regulation, good relationships, and a good sense of self.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I listened to it as an audiobook and in some ways Attia’s narration kept me going. There is a bit of a slog through theory and studies and medical information. But the autobiographical elements of the book keep it interesting, and help the reader apply the lessons to their own situation. I have now purchased the print copy so I have it as a reference.

If you liked Good Energy by Casey Means then this is the precursor to that book. They must have been writing at similar times since the books are published only a year apart. Perhaps most telling is that here are two medical professionals who are sounding the alarm about North American’s poor metabolic health. These books are more than a warning sign. They are an essential read.