stargazer

Nonfiction November: Pushing the Limits

Nonfiction November is in full swing and I finally managed to post a contribution. Better late than never! In my post from last year, Nonfiction Favourites, I mentioned inspirational reads as one of my favourite nonfiction genres. A specific sub category is particularly close to my heart: Memoirs of people who one way or another have been pushing the limits. And I don’t necessarily mean the limits for the human species, people challenging their own personal limits is equally impactful.

Last year, my favourite in this category was The Salt Path. Actually, it might have been my favourite across all genres. It was such an amazing story, which made me angry and sad, but also hopeful and optimistic. Furthermore, I recognised many of the “charms” of hiking from my own hiking trips. But what did this year have to offer?

Chrissie Wellington is certainly pushing the limits

How mad do you have to be to attempt an Ironman Triathlon? 3.9 km swimming, 180 km biking and 42.1 km running. Just thinking about one of these distances makes me dizzy.

However, you don’t need any enthusiasm for triathlon to enjoy reading about four times world champion, Chrissie Wellington. Chrissie, whose nickname is “Muppet”, comes across as a wonderful person; warm, enthusiastic, adventurous, fun and generous. She is the type of person you’d want to be friends with. Of course, she is also ultra competitive, obsessively focused on her targets and has a strong need to be in control; it’s these latter characteristics which made her a world champion. It is also these characteristics which caused periods of eating disorder in her youth. Chrissie talks about this with openness and honesty.

A life without Limits gives insight into the life of a professional triathlete. Not very glamorous, I can tell! The races aren’t glamorous either, but wow… When Chrissie described her first Ironman in Hawaii, I felt I was there with her, inhaling the exhilarating atmosphere and screaming myself hoarse at the athletes. Ironman aside, I also loved the stories from her youth, her passion for supporting the environment and developing countries, her work with children and in particular all her traveling around the world. A wonderful and unexpected gem!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Chris Hadfield decided at the age of nine that he wanted to be an astronaut and since then his actions and mindset was guided by this ambition. Seriously! Reading this made me feel like I have been mulling around aimlessly. When I was nine, my biggest ambition was to learn horse riding. 🙄 Learning how difficult it is to become an astronaut, I can see it made a lot of sense to start preparing from age nine.

There were so many aspects of space travel, which I’d never thought of and which truly make astronauts seem like super-humans. Just the multi-tasking skills they need to be capable of is frightening. With only three of you on a long mission, you cannot rely on just one person having a specific skillset. So a single person may need to be able to fly the shuttle, operate complex robotic tools, know the instant response to the gazillion things which may go wrong, perform basic dental and medical procedures, repair the toilet, be good at teamwork, handle press interviews, take high-quality photos and play the guitar. Well, strictly speaking, I don’t think they have to play the guitar, but by the sounds of it, a lot of them do.

Hadfield’s story was a captivating peek into a unique profession and his enthusiasm for space travel shone through every sentence.

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Pushing the Limits quote

Books about pushing the limits inspire me to become a better version of myself and to remember we only live once and whichever aspirations we may have for our lives, we shouldn’t hold back. They also remind me to look up at the stars instead of down at the gutter, i.e. look at all the wonderful things we can achieve if we set our minds to it, instead of letting ourselves be weighed down by incompetent politicians, Covid 19, lurking economic crisis, not to mention all the rain we seem to get these days. Together with science podcasts and documentaries (which remind me how weird and amazing our universe is) inspirational memoirs are my go-to escapism, when daily life seems bleak.

Phew, that was a lot of babbling! And in case you didn’t notice, I managed to squeeze in parts of the reasoning behind my name, stargazer. 🤓 Anyway, my point is, I won’t tire of inspirational reads anytime soon, so recommendations are welcome!

Nonfiction November is hosted by Doing Dewey, What’s Nonfiction, Julz Reads and Shelf Aware.

54 comments

    • Awww, thanks Jonetta, I am glad you enjoyed my choices! They have certainly cheered me up in a year with lots of negativity. Also, at times when I am hit by lockdown lethargy (ah, I can’t be bothered doing my pilates today, I’ll do it tomorrow) I think about the discipline these people have mustered, and then I do my exercises after all. 😉

  2. Hello. That was a very enjoyable post. It’s amazing how some people live a life full of all sorts of adventures and some of us are born, grow up, reproduce and die.

    • Thanks, I am glad you enjoyed it! 😀 Yes, some people seem have very adventurous lives, but judging from Hadfield’s book even astronauts spend most of their time doing relatively unglamorous work. I like that even if we don’t want do something extreme, we can still get a lot of inspiration from these books to help us push our own personal limits a little bit and help us to grow as human beings.

  3. So glad to meet a fellow lover of The Salt Path. Did you know about the new book she has just published which continues their story. I heard her speak about this via an online book launch and it sounds just as wonderful

    • Yes, I definitely mean to read her new book, I hope it can live up to The Salt Path! How did you hear about the online book launch? I always miss out on these events, perhaps it’s because I’m not on social media.

    • I am reading The Wild Silence at the moment. I’m about half way through and after what seemed be a shaky start where I feared it might fall prey to second book syndrome, I’m now loving it possibly more than The Salt Path. It tells more of her life both before and after the walk described in the first book (including how she came to write that first one and then have it published). The writing is still wonderful, the nature elements still beautifully expressed and the inspiration is there in spades. I’m finding it harder to deal with the sadder aspects in the book, in part I think because of circumstances in my own life right now, but I still recommend it highly. Will be one of my books of this year without a doubt.

      • I really want to read this but keep putting it off in case it isn’t as good as Salt Path. Now I’ve seen your response I feel more confident

    • They really were! I’ve always wondered what it must be like to know what you want from an early age. Nine years old is definitely extreme, but I could imagine actually seeing the moon landing live on television must have been so unique and inspired many children growing up back then.

    • Exactly, being inspired by other people’s journeys is good fun and useful as well. Besides from the discipline, courage and endless striving to become better, etc. etc, what I really liked was the attitude of these people towards life and towards other people. Most of us could learn from that. Some of Chris Hadfield’s life mantras were so humble (but also utterly sensible) so they sounded completely crazy, like they belonged to a different era. Which I guess in a way they did. 🙂

  7. Oo such a great quote and positive mindset, I understand your blogname a little bit better now and love the meaning behind it! Great selection of books too, I can see why they lift you up and make you want to be the best version of yourself too, so inspirational. Funny fact that they all play guitar in space too! 😁

    • I am glad you like the quote, Oscar Wilde is one of my favourite writers. 😀 It’s actually written on the top of my blog, but I know most people read posts via the WordPress reader or similar and therefore don’t see it. Yeah, it’s quite fun how playing guitar in space gained traction – Chris Hadfield also recorded a music video from the ISS (international Space Station).

      • I totally missed it (even today), I’ll definitely pay attention next time ☺️ I read your post in my email first, and then later when I have time I go to comment.. must be why I missed it. A music video from the ISS, huh… you really do know so many cool little facts 😀

        • Haha, it’s amazing the amount of more or less useful little facts you can pick up by reading books! 😉

    • You are welcome! I guess these type of books don’t appeal to everyone. Personally, I like (on a smaller scale) to push my own limits and I can easily see, why some people end up doing crazy mountaineering or Ironman. You start with something relatively mundane and then take it one step further, then one more… Reading about the life of astronauts was fun and I learned a lot as well. Hope you will enjoy, if you decide to read it.

  9. Fabulous idea for a list. I read Wild Girl last year about a tv presenter in England who took on a whole series of very difficult physical challenges, and I loved it. I also just finished Good Morning, Monster, a book about a therapist’s most heroic clients. Thank you!

    • Thanks! 😀 I just googled Wild Girl, it sounds right up my street! I’ve been to the Namibian desert and it is one of the most hostile (and amazing) places I’ve visited. Imagine running an ultra marathon there, I was exhausted from walking around a couple of hours in the sauna like temperatures. Great recommendation, thanks so much!

  11. Inspirational reads are definitely a good thing for these times (and any time really). I need to do more of that.

    • I think, they are particularly helpful in these times to make us keep our positive outlook. If I suffer from a bit of lockdown lethargy – it does happen – I find such books useful as well. Thanks for stopping by!

    • By the way, I tried to find your blog to have a look, but didn’t manage. Feel free to post a link, if you like.

    • Yes, it seems we do have some overlap in our nonfiction taste. Thanks so much for co-hosting, I think it’s a great event!

  13. Oh man, I LOVE your topic. I do read a lot of nonfiction that inspires me and two that I read this year were If at Birth you Don’t Succeed by Zach Anner and The Year of Less by Cait Flanners. I also find habit books inspiring because they make me feel in control especially Atomic Habits by James Clear.

    Molly @ SilverButtonBooks

    • That is good to hear! And thanks so much for the recommendations, especially If at Birth you Don’t Succeed sounds amazing, I have noted it down on my list. For some reason self-help books have never appealed. I think it’s because I’ve always been terrible at people telling me what to do 🙄, whereas memoirs inspire me to find my own way to do things. Does that make sense?

  14. Another great post, Stargazer – inspirational in itself 🤩 (see those stars in there? 😉 ) I’m going to reply to Bookertalk’s comment re the sequel to The Salt Path – I’m reading it at the moment!

    • Thanks so much Sandra, I am glad you found it inspirational. And I do see the stars. 😁 Good to hear your view on The Wild Silence. It was always going to be difficult to live up to The Salt Path, but it sounds promising. I am so sorry if your circumstances are difficult at the moment. Even if books don’t solve anything, I hope you have some good ones, which may temporarily take your mind off other things.

    • Yes, antidote is a good way to describe them. 🙂 The Salt Path does have a great cover, but the book is even better! Your topic sounds interesting, I will be over and have a look.

  16. Someone else has Salt Path on their list! I will have to check it out. I love anything about the stars as well and you have some great ones on your list. I love me some inspirational reading too. Thanks for sharing.

    • I hope you will enjoy The Salt Path, if you decide to go ahead. Good to hear you like stars – so do I, in any shape, form and interpretation! You are welcome!

  17. What an inspirational post!!! While I absolutely love your choices but I’m also a little mad that you’re destroying my TBR!! I love the cover of The Salt Path! And now I appreciate your name even more 🙂

    • Aww thanks!! Everyone seems to notice the cover of The Salt Path, but trust me, the content is even better! 🙂 Haha, probably people think stargazer is a weird name for a book blogger – maybe one day I will write a little story about how I came up with it.

        • Yeah, of course you are right, the rather ugly avatar photo might be even more puzzling!😆 I will see what I can do, it might be fun to write the story behind it.

  19. Loved how you squeezed in a reminder of why you call yourself stargazer! No better post to talk about that too. It’s definitely inspiring to read about these people and what they were able to accomplish in life! I especially enjoy documentaries to really get the whole impact though. Great selection though! 😀

    • My blogging name is probably quite puzzling, so I feel, perhaps I ought to explain myself. I am glad you find such books inspiring as well and I agree, documentaries can also have a great impact.

  20. I just finished The Salt Path and loved it. I was so amazed by what the author and her husband accomplished in such difficult times, how inspiring. And I love books that focus on natural beauty. I was expecting it to be more dramatic, but found it instead to be a really calming, thoughtful read – perfect for right now. Thanks for sharing your recommendations!

    • I am so glad to hear that! It really is an amazing story and besides from being a thoughtful and inspiring read, it also made me want to do the walk or at least parts of it. You are welcome and thanks for stopping by!

    • Thanks, I find memoirs of interesting people just as interesting as fiction, if not more. Thanks for stopping by!

  22. Really lovely post! Thanks for joining us for Nonfiction November 🙂 I don’t read many memoirs, but I did fine the biography A Woman of No Important inspirational and would definitely recommend it. Hadfield’s memoir is one I would like to get to. Just from your review here, I’m certain there are all sorts of cool aspects of being an astronaut that I’d like to learn more about.

    • Thanks so much and thanks for co-hosting Nonfiction November! I’ve enjoyed taking part and I’ve found lots of ideas for future reads! Inspirational biographies work as well. I looked up A Woman of no Importance, it sounds like one I would definitely enjoy. Yes the world of an astronaut is just so difficult to imagine, so it was fun to read Hadfield’s book.

  23. I don’t think about inspiration reads per se, but of course many books I read are inspirational! I love your idea of talking about pushing the limits. That’s inspired. I’m not sure that Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence is about pushing the limits, but it is certainly about how to cope when you are pushed to the limits!

    • Of course you are right, many books are inspirational, sometimes even books we didn’t expect it from. I find stories about coping with being pushed to the limits (surviving concentration camp, fighting severe illness, etc.) are just as inspirational, if not more. Will definitely look into Phosphorescence.

Comments are closed.