The theme of the 600s is applied science and "how-to." Applied biology is medicine, and medicine is a very broad category. I love brain science, so that's the common thread between the books I grabbed.
But here's how I know that this is not the time for me to read a book about PTSD: The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. It was described to me as the go-to book about PTSD, but it has also been described as intense and disturbing. It is possible that it would be an extremely helpful book for someone such as myself undergoing trauma therapy; however, since the process of reading the detailed and extreme stories of other survivors is in itself so traumatizing, I wouldn't undertake it without support. I got to page 55 before the stories, illustrated with unattractive diagrams and photos, were just more than I could handle. However, I did take away one vital point: trauma is processed through story, and the journey of healing is, at least in part, the discarding of the "cover story" that makes your trauma understandable and palatable to the outside world, and the discovery of the true story, the story that may not be for public consumption but that explains you to yourself.
The Undoing Project just had a neat title, and the author wrote both Moneyball and The Big Short. I actually can't understand what it is about in terms of brain science, but it is clearly also or even mainly about the friendship between the two men who discovered whatever it is that they discovered. I'm sure it is an enjoyable read for fans of Freakonomics and Dan Ariely.
Rest, by Ale Soojung-Kim Pang, is the book I read all the way through. It was relaxing, I'll give it that... I did get a few naps while working through chapters with titles like "Walk," "Stop," Sabbaticals," and, yes, "Naps." However. It was not exactly the ode to lounging that I was looking for. Pang's examples-- and there were a lot-- were all high achievers. From Anthony Trollope to Stephen King, from Churchill to Eisenhower, they may have only worked four hours a day (for some definition of work), walked 5 miles a day, and taken a month off every year, but they still were or are exceptional in their fields. It's just a little exhausting reading 5 pages on the science of naps, followed by three pages listing all the super-famous people who take naps, if you are in a job situation where neither a nap nor any degree of fame is remotely within your reach!
