Book Reviews: January 2026

Another month, another batch of books to gripe about and/or enthuse over. Meanwhile, perceptions of our world's trajectory plummet and I'm nearly to the point of pitching gainful employment into the sea.

I did take my great-grandmother's doilies out for a quick and dirty photoshoot for a distant cousin found on Ancestry dot com. Trying to think of a good way to display them without getting destroyed.

Anyway.

The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer

I have so few nice things to say about this book that I'm just going to deliver this review in bullet points:

• Reading this felt like learning Spanish from Peggy Hill.
• Like Radical Candor, the biggest takeaway is that I don't want to work for or with the author.
• Throughout the book, the author keeps reminding the reader that she's from Minnesota but is now such a world traveler and international citizen, much like a young adult that studied abroad for a semester.
• For being so supposedly internationally focused, the perspective still smacks of American-centeredness.
• Maybe this book would be useful if I was currently working on an international team.
• More than that, it probably would have been very useful to some wildly out of touch employers I have known.
• Maybe leadership books are just awful reads.
• There is no way any of the quotes featuured were spoken as presented, if they happened at all.
• The author began the book advising to more or less overlook individuals' behaviors in favor of cultural patterns, but then highlightedthe importance of considering individual behavior in the afterward.
• Some of my criticism almost certainly comes from a place of jealousy, and I would have been very excited about this book as a 19-year-old anthropology major who didn't know any better.

2.5 out of 5 stars.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

I think about death more and more as I and everyone I love continue to age as we hurtle through time. Contracting Lyme disease taught me to be okay with the concept of my own mortality, but I'd still prefer that my beloveds remain happy, healthy, whole, and above ground for all of eternity.

Failing that, having a Stygian concierge like Doughty presenting the realities of death and decay as experienced by both the living and their survivors does indeed drive home that these are ordinary and inevitable eventualities for us all. She recounts her young adulthood spent retrieving bodies and conscripting them to the furnace with such a balanced blend of empathy and humor, all while folding in anecdotes on worldwide cultural practices (eat your heart out, Erin Meyer), as well as the sinister realities of the modern-day funeral industry (most funeral homes are owned by corporations! embalming is a relatively new and pretty horrible practice!).

All in all, an important read. Doughty is doing all of us such a great service with her death-positive advocacy.

5 out of 5 stars.

It's Not You by Ramani Durvasula

Much like Why Does He Do That, this book feels like required reading for the young person embarking on having relationships, and absolutely vital for the post-breakup survivor of narcissistic abuse. I haven't watched the author's YouTube videos, but I see them referenced in relevant forums often.

Maybe because I'm six years and a mountain of literature past my own escape, some of the advice and assertions seemed a bit repetitive. My ears glazed over for a bit about midway through. Still, it is a worthy and worthwhile read for anyone who needs it.

4.75 out of 5 stars.

The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington

I actually hated this one. While inviting the reader to plan and execute in repeating 12-week cycles makes for an interesting concept, it also absolutely guarantees burnout for even the most driven souls.

And it offers dangerous weight loss advice.

And it shames the reader for not calling their parents enough.

And it folds in more than a few odd mentions of Christianity, which I was not expecting from a business book.

As a seemingly permanent burnout who still entertains visions of endless productivity, I found this pretty tough to get through. Like some jobs I've held, it would have been in my best interest to end the suffering and quit rather than force myself to soldier through, personal well-being be damned. Blah.

1.25 out of 5 stars.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

It appears that I am not currently cut out to be a reader of fiction and novels UNLESS there is a magnitude of world building and character development. If I have to figure circumstances and players out quickly, it doesn't go well.

Luckily, this novel spans across much of the twentieth century, with the story focused on a small, central family.

And it's informative, too! Being the product of the American public school system, I had little to no knowledge of Japanese-Korean relations, diaspora, bureaucracy, nationality-based social stratification, none of it! I only knew about pachinko because a lolita-obsessed high school friend compelled me to read and watch the movie version of Kamikaze Girls.

The scope of the story felt Tolstoy-esque. The author piled on a lot of extra characters about three-quarters of the way through, and folded in some spicy parts. What was surprising was a sudden and explicit description of a homoerotic encounter experienced by a secondary (maybe tertiary) character's wife, with not much in the way of lead up or later resolution. I don't know what the reasoning was for that inclusion, besides just the writer seeing if she could pull it off. Just an odd choice that felt wildly out of place.

All in all, a decent distraction from The Horrors.

4 out of 5 stars.

Winter doesn't seem to be wearing on me as much this year. If world, work, and personal circumstances were a bit different, I could even say that January was nearly pleasant. Nearly.

Onward.