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Books

Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
Rubina told me I needed to read this book probably a year ago and I just got around to reading it now.  It was adorable.  In the review on goodreads they call it "charming" and I couldn't agree more.
It's one of those books that I think, 'If I have children, we're reading this book.'  And, 'I wish we read that book with the girl I volunteer with.'  I don't get to pick.
So so cute.

Run Less Run Faster - Runner's World

I think I read a more recent edition than the one linked to above.
Honestly, I skimmed this book.  I just don't think the goals of their program are my goals. This program is for 3 days running a week while monitoring your pace all the time.  The goal is go fast fast fast.  Sure, I like to go fast, but not sure I want to do a program like this to go fast.  It's not that important to me.  I like to run, to run.
However, I do think for the future, I'm not going to run as much as I have in the past during training programs.  As this book said, I think I'll try excluding "easy run days (junk mileage)" and do some cross training instead.
And I think I discovered by knee issue is an ITBS.  So that's helpful.

Slim for Life - Jillian Michaels

This was a nice, quick read about healthy living.  I did get the point that I need to start reading labels rather than trusting what the front of the packaging says.  The day after reading the book I went to buy wheat flour and checked the label on flour that I've bought before, believing it to be wheat to realize it's white wheat flour (whatever that means).  No, I know what it means.  I was tricked.  But not this time!

Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracy Kidder

This book is super inspiring and interesting to see what one person has the ambition to do.  Yes, it's real, non-fiction.  It presented many different approaches to helping the poor.
I really liked this book.  I filled up pages of my journal with quotes from this one.  Here are a few of my favorites:
*The words - tout moun se moun - seemed like the answer to the question he'd asked himself earlier that day.  Was being an American a sufficient identity unto itself?  "She said that again & again," he remembered.  "We're all human beings."
*The Peruvians didn't have Paul's or Jim's freedom of action.  It would only hurt their cause if they complained, for instance, that they could afford to treat all strains of TB for just a fraction of the money President Fujimori was spending on fighter jets.
*He turned & gazed out the window.  A large sign was affixed to an airplane hangar across the tarmac.  It read PATRIA ES HUMANIDAD.  An internationalist assertion - the only real nation is humanity.
*As we entered the city proper, that great dove-colored epicurean city, he murmured something about how much could be done in Haiti if only he could get his hands on the money that the first world spent on pet grooming.
*"I don't care if we lose, I'm gonna try to do the right thing."
*"You have to believe that small gestures matter, that they do add up."

Salt Sugar Fat:  How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Michael Moss
I haven't had a chance to read this one yet, but it looks intriguing.  I read this article which was adapted from the book after seeing it mentioned on BuzzFeed here and went to the article to read more about it.  
Favorite quote from the article:  

In his capacity, Dunn was making frequent trips to Brazil, where the company had recently begun a push to increase consumption of Coke among the many Brazilians living in favelas. The company’s strategy was to repackage Coke into smaller, more affordable 6.7-ounce bottles, just 20 cents each. Coke was not alone in seeing Brazil as a potential boon; Nestlé began deploying battalions of women to travel poor neighborhoods, hawking American-style processed foods door to door. But Coke was Dunn’s concern, and on one trip, as he walked through one of the impoverished areas, he had an epiphany. “A voice in my head says, ‘These people need a lot of things, but they don’t need a Coke.’ I almost threw up.”

It's always about selling.

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