I picked this book up on the casual recommendation of a number of mountaineering women talking about being women on the mountains. The challenges women face on the mountain include most of the challenges men face, and them some different ones: menstruation, peeing, nutrition that isn't designed for a women's body because all of the research is historically done on fit, young men. Research on women is "too messy," which is EXACTLY THE REASON TO DO THE RESEARCH, but, you know, men.

Right, the book.

The recommendation was spot on. Whether the guidelines and suggestions in the book help me has yet to be determined, as I'll need to try them out and see if they work for me. However, if nothing else comes from the book, the repeated statement, "Women are not small men" (and here's how) is worth the book. There are a number of diet, nutrition, and recovery recommendations that are worth trying. I appreciated the insights, and the (let's be honest, currently imaginary) connection I have to other women (mountain) athletes as a result of the recommendation and reading.

Strongly recommend the book for female athletes (and maybe coaches of female athletes, but am unsure on that latter recommendation. couldn't hurt?).

This book was recommended by another micro.blog reader as a book that describes math without weighing the reader down with, well, numbers. I agree: it was a lovely read. Even some of the book reviews are lovely reads, for goodness' sake!

I mean, start at the beginning with shapes and manifolds. Who knows of manifolds? Ask me about manifolds and I'm going to start telling you about intake manifolds and possibly exhaust manifolds, not mathematical manifolds. And yet, here we are talking about manifolds and shapes and different dimensions, and the whole of me swoons.

And then infinity comes into the story, along with "what's bigger than infinity?" and hooboy. I want to sit Jonathan's boys down and read this book with them, explore the nature of math and show just how amazingly beautiful it is, and how amazingly big it is.

I, too, strongly recommend this delightful, fun read, especially to anyone who thinks (or was told) they suck at math. You likely don't suck, you more likely had an uninteresting, detached teacher who failed to demonstrate the joy of math.

This book came to me circuitously via reader responses to Austin Kleon's post I'm not languishing, I'm dormant.. The two posts were mentioned in S's RSS feed, and I rather enjoy S's article curation, so I read Austin's post, and checked May's book out from the library.

Wow, this is such a lovely book. The story isn't as it seems. It seems to be the tale of a woman with stomach cancer suddenly needing to slow down, because, well, stomach cancer. Isn't that at all, though the misdirection fits so amazingly well, and there are a lot of health issues involved in the telling. The book is about slowing down, but also about growth. I was a little uncomfortable with just how much anxiety May has in certain situations that I either don't have anxiety in or about, or have learned to jump in feet first, the depth be damned. I recognize that discomfort is entirely mine, and I loved noticing it as I read the book.

There are so many beautiful parts to this book that I was recommending it after reading not even half of it. Mm immediately started reading it, and shortly began sending me beautiful quotes from the book. I loved that synergy.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is or has been wintering (the title of a Sylvia Plath's poem about bees). Resting is okay. Promise.