Book Review: Fridge Love: Organize Your Refrigerator for a Healthier, Happier Life―with 100 Recipes by Kristen Hong

Fridge Love: Organize Your Refrigerator for a Healthier, Happier Life―with 100 Recipes by Kristen Hong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was initially attracted to this book because of its claim to help me organize my refrigerator.  There are beautiful glossy color photos of the author's fridge with everything in matching glass containers and arranged by the colors of the rainbow.  However, I needed to look past my disdain of books like that in order to find the very helpful information about how to make my fridge work for me.

The book is organized by what type of cooking / eating goals you have:  fresh fridge, chopped fridge, no-cook fridge, and prepped frig.  She gives extensive information about produce -- seasonality, shopping, prepping, storage, and length of freshness for each type of fruit and vegetable.  However, there is not much information about meats and dairy products, or about the freezer.  There's also some brief information about the best way to clean your fridge.  There is a very extensive section of the book about the history of the refrigerator, which was extraneous in my opinion.  

The author is a nutritarian who doesn't eat dairy and very rarely includes oils in her recipes and cooking.  Therefore, many of the recipes in the back of the book didn't work for me and my family. I would recommend this book for anyone who is committed to having a better organized refrigerator.  However, my suggestion is to check it out from your local library.   

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Book Review: The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life by Arthur C. Brooks

The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life by Arthur C. Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a compilation of some of the weekly columns that Arthur C. Brooks writes on happiness in the Atlantic.  It is divided into five sections -- On Managing Yourself; On Jobs, Money, and Building Your Career; On Communicating and Connecting with Others; On Balancing Work, Life, and Relationships; and On How You Define Success.  Each column is relatively short - 5-7 pages - and contains actionable items for change.

I have been reading his columns for a couple of years, but I gained a lot of ideas when re-reading some of them in this book.  Many of the columns are written for those individuals currently in the workplace, but there are still takeaways for retirees such as myself.  I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in introspection and self-improvement.  

Thanks to NetGalley and Harvard Business Review Press for an advanced reader copy of this book.

Read more of my reviews at https://thegoodreader13.blogspot.com/.

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