My 2025 Reads
Over the years I have acquired a taste for buying books and not reading them, but last year I set off on a goal to conquer my psycho-educational shelf sitters. This was part of an overall goal to finish 24 books in 2024 and not spend money on any books. I also felt inspired to share my reviews via my website for clients, potential clients, and fellow therapists. Providing reviews holds me accountable but also pushes me to write more in hopes that I’ll publish something one day. I was going strong until I hit a bit of an information burnout wall over the Summer. However, I re-discovered that the library exists (what a concept), and plunged into more fiction for the rest of the year. I ended the year with 36 books and audiobooks of all kinds finished.
My full blown love for reading era has been born, and I want to continue sharing with clients and peers. This year I increased my target number to 35 physical books, hoping to finish the shelf sitters. I plan to continue with my non-fiction reviews, but giving them not just on books that relate to therapy, counseling, and health. If there is an educational book that improves my world and leads me to believe it could improve others’ worlds, you will find it here. I also learned the pains of formatting and have changed my methods for this year!
The Light Eaters
“Agency is an organism’s capacity to assess the conditions it finds itself in, and change itself to suit them.” (p. 238).
This book had me at “Who doesn’t feel both drawn to and repulsed by the unknown?” (p. 4) in the prologue. I am a budding plant enthusiast and find pleasure in learning outside of my career, especially if it relates to what already brings me joy. Reading this bestseller was enticing and fun. Although I did not soak up every scientific detail in each chapter (there is a lot!), this book truly captures how resilient and complex the plant world is. There has been great debate on the biological intelligence of plants for decades. Schlanger’s work has taught me that my understanding of the botany world goes far beyond what I expect. Chapters include arguments for plants “communicating” via chemicals, having capacity for memory, keeping score of traumas, interacting as communities, and utilizing the animal world to sustain life and thrive. This book also tapped into my understanding of adaptable life in general. Schlanger claims how all life intelligence (human or not) can be measured by approaches taken, not necessarily success. She states “who we are shows itself not just in the outcomes of our goals but in the paths we take to get there” (p. 258), an idea I often bring up when working with clients. This book has definitely introduced me to new metaphors for our capacity to change. If you are curious, please click the image for a link to the author’s website.
White Women
“Don’t do nothing out of the fear of doing it imperfectly.” (p. 14)
“[B]eing racist doesn’t automatically mean you are ‘bad.’ It’s the result of being a white American in this country. This is a critical step of the work. If you’re stuck on feeling bad, you’re stuck on centering your feelings” (p. 145)
First I will share what this book is about, then I will speak on my personal experience reading it. Authors Regina Jackson and Saira Rao are women of color who started Race2Dinner, an organization that facilitates conversations between white women about white supremacy and racism. This book shares examples from some of these dinners, personal experiences of BIPOC women, and how not knowing perpetuates racism. Specifically, they talk about white silence, spiritual bypassing, gaslighting, toxic positivity, cultural appropriation, white allies, and white saviors. That names just a few of the deep subjects. There is also a dictionary in the back, and “Questions for Discussion and Self-Accountability.”
As a therapist and claimed advocate in this country, it remains important for me to stay educated on my implicit biases as a white woman. My journey with understanding my white privilege and my prejudices began in my graduate coursework at age 26. I feel some shame in admitting how long it took, but I am here now. We must be open to being uncomfortable, knowing what to do with those feelings, and expanding who we talk to about those feelings. I can still recoil from the idea of speaking up, and am still unsure how to address these uncomfortable feelings in a way that promotes change. Reading this book brought up defensiveness in me, because the authors lump all white women together. I am not like all white women, but it doesn’t matter. Feeling the need to state that I am not like a lot of the women they describe is part of the problem. I have to be uncomfortable with how I have similarities with white women perpetuating white supremacy in this country. I also learned for the first time about “performative action.” There is a difference between being in the fight and just calling yourself an ally. I have fallen into this belief that saying I am an ally is enough. “To help is to be ancillary, to be outside the problem” (p. 141). This book has planted a seed for how I can be more in the fight, rather than just reading another book and stating that I’m an ally. If you are curious, please click the image for a link to the authors’ website.