I read five books in January 2024. I have been reading less for my personal pleasure due to starting a post-graduate paralegal certificate program and spending most of my time reading textbooks. Here is a brief synopsis of the five books I read in January 2024, some of which I will post about in greater detail in the future.
“101 Things I Learned in Advertising School” was written by Tracy Arrington with Matthew Frederick. It was an interesting, quick, and easy read, and I learned a lot! Here are a few takeaways:
It’s all advertising until it lands in the cart: public ads, location, packaging, etc. 
Don’t buy media if you can earn it through exposure such as news coverage, editorials, and social media buzz.
You won’t have a healthy relationship if you do all the talking. In the digital environment, if consumers don’t like what they hear and don’t feel they are being listened to, they can and will go elsewhere – maybe even to the media outlets.
“The Book You Want Everyone You Love To Read: Sane and Sage Advice to Help You Navigate All of Your Most Important Relationships” was written by Philippa Perry, an author, psychotherapist, artist, TV and radio presenter, and advice columinist for The Guardian. 
This book will change your life.
It covers the importance of relationships and the difficulties that come with them, and you will get into the habit of practicing new ways of behaving and communicating. 
I took away so much from this book and will share more about it on my blog sometime.
It is so much easier to blame something outside ourselves for our discontent than it is to look inwardly for a cause.
Recognize when you are playing the martyr and stop. If you allow yourself to be dragged down by someone else, you will resent them for it. Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die. 
“Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories” was written by Terrence Holt and detailed what it’s like to be a doctor. It was fascinating at times and I gained some medical knowledge and a better understanding of the process of my grandpa’s heart and kidney failure that led to his death. 
“Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” was written by David Grann and detailed the atrocities the Osage Indian Nation experienced. This book detailed the allotment, the policy to break up American Indians’ communal ownership of land in Oklahoma, and the Indians kept the subsurface mineral rights to the land. Within several years, large deposits of oil were discovered directly under their lands, and the Osage were given a headright, which was a share in the mineral trust. A headright could not be bought or sold; it could only be inherited. This resulted in calculated and cruel murders, betrayals, and coverups.
“Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations” was a unique graphic memoir written by Mira Jacobs. This book covered Mira’s journey as a first-generation American and delved into difficult conversations that she had with her young son and husband about race, love, and family. Mira detailed several times she didn’t fit in because of the color of her skin – from receiving a bottle of Fair & Lovely as a gift from her grandmother, to navigating the job search as a colored person, to being mistaken as “the help”, to being told by a waitress that other customers didn’t feel “safe” near her. She was often torn about whether to say something or whether to stay silent about the treatment she faced. These two photos resonated with me.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
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