Sekar Writes
A Collection of (Mostly Nonfiction) Books Review and Personal Notes
Welcome!
Take a look around my blog, where I bring you book reviews filled with knowledges and favorite quotes. Alongside my literary explorations, I share personal stories and some side projects.
Me, More or Less
These lists are pretty much describe me in a nutshell.
Latest Nonfiction Book Reviews
Check out my nonfiction book reviews, featuring thoughts, summaries, and favorite quotes.
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Review: On Character
In short, reflective chapters, a retired general shares his life journey and how his views have evolved over time.
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Review: There Lives A Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die
Haunting, honest, and beautifully translated, The Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die captures the deepest parts of life and feeling.
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Review: Ordinary Time
Staying isn’t always easy but it can be meaningful. Ordinary Time shares personal essays on faith, place, and life in the quiet middle.
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Review and Summary: Searches
Searches is a reflective essays that explores how the tools we use daily have become mirrors, magnifiers, and even editors of our identities.
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Review and Summary: Moral Ambition
Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman explores how purpose, privilege, and action can shape a better world through realistic idealism.
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Review: Childhood, Youth, Dependency
Childhood, Youth, Dependency is a memoir of growing up as a girl in a working-class family in 1950s Denmark.
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Review and Summary: The Ideological Brain
What if your political beliefs were shaped by your brain’s wiring? The Ideological Brain reveals the hidden roots of ideology and identity.
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Review and Summary: Chatter
Your inner voice isn’t the enemy, it just needs better direction. Chatter rewired how I talk to myself, and it might do the same for you.
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Review and Summary: Thinking Through Writing
Turn your thoughts into great writing with Thinking Through Writing. Learn how to write better and think smarter.
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Review: The Hill We Climb
The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman offers beautifully written words and powerful hope when you need it in today’s chaotic world.
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Review and Summary: Life in Three Dimensions
Is there more to life than happiness or meaning? Life in Three Dimensions presents psychological richness as a third path to live fully.
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Review and Summary: The Art of Change
Feeling stuck in a fast-changing world? The Art of Change shows how shifting your mindset helps you grow, adapt, and lead with confidence.
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Review and Summary: Hate the Game
Hate the Game equips readers with savvy strategies to beat the odds in capitalism, offering empowering insights in an approachable style.
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Review: The Wild Why
Curiosity and wonder take center stage in The Wild Why. What if slowing down could unlock a deeper connection to life?
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Review and Summary: Atlas of the Heart
Think you know your emotions? Atlas of the Heart uncovers the gaps in our emotional vocabulary and why naming our feelings matters.
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Review and Summary: The Importance of Being Educable
Is intelligence enough? The Importance of Being Educable explores how human educability shapes the future.
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Review and Summary: The Lessons of History
The Lessons of History shares timeless insights on how the past shapes our world. It’s a thought-provoking and concise read.
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Review and Summary: Everything Is Tuberculosis
John Green’s Everything Is Tuberculosis reveals how injustice, not medicine, keeps a curable disease alive today.
From Facts to Fiction
Nonfiction teaches me about the world, but fiction helps me feel it.
Every review comes with the quotes I saved.
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Review: The Bright Years
The Bright Years looks like a sweet love story at first, but it hides addiction, secrets, and a family falling apart underneath.
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Review: On Earth as it is Beneath
On Earth As It Is Beneath is set in a Brazilian prison built on hidden bones, where inmates are hunted each month in a brutal survival ritual.
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Review: Demon Copperhead
Demon Copperhead, forced to grow up too fast amid poverty, addiction, and a broken foster system. A rich retelling of a Dickens classic.
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Review: And Every Morning the way Home Gets Longer
A grandfather is forgetting his memory. His son and grandson are left holding onto what’s slipping away in this short, aching book by Backman.
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Review: The Answer Is No
Meet Lucas, a man happy in his own world, until a frying pan changes everything in The Answer is No, Fredrik Backman’s witty short book.
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Review: The Trouble with Happiness and Other Stories
Some people always want more from life than life will hand them. The Trouble with Happiness is about that ache, and the homes it wrecks.
Browse Nonfiction Books by Specific Genre
Have a specific book topic in mind?
You’ll likely find it in these categories!
- Biographies and Memoirs (33)
- Biology and Life Sciences (12)
- Child Development and Parenting (13)
- Climate Change (2)
- Cooking and Culinary (3)
- Critical Thinking and Research Skills (15)
- Data and Statistics (8)
- Economics (6)
- Education and Learning (10)
- Essays (27)
- Evolutionary Biology (6)
- Fitness and Human Performance (23)
- Health and Medicine (30)
- Leadership and Career (8)
- Life Transitions (11)
- Linguistics (4)
- Literature (2)
- Luck and Chance (3)
- Mathematics (2)
- Mindfulness (3)
- Nature (21)
- Neuroscience (13)
- Poetry (15)
- Politics and Society (41)
- Productivity (25)
- Psychology and Behavioral Science (49)
- Science (44)
- Self-Development (80)
- Technology and AI (10)
- UI/UX (2)
- Women's Studies (6)
- Writing (9)
Life in the Margins
Here’s what else you’ll find on this blog.
Reading Life
- Snapshots of my reading life: the habits, the tracking, and everything around books.
Journaling
- Writing is how I make sense of things. A look at my journaling practice: how I do it, why I do it, and what it’s given me.
Fresh Flower Care
- Looking after fresh flowers asks me to slow down and be present. Here are my personal notes on keeping them beautiful and alive for longer.
Home Gardening
- There’s something grounding about growing things at home. Follow along with my notes as I watch things grow, season by season.
Life in Helsinki, Finland
- Living in Helsinki has shaped how I read, think, and move through the world. A little window into my life in the north.
Hi, I am Sekar!
My passion for reading (at least) one book a week fuels my love for books and drives me to share the insights with others.
Medical science by training, curious about everything else. Here I share my hobbies and the things life teaches me.
Feel free to reach out and join me in celebrating books and all the small joys that make life fuller.
Books let us know we’re not the center of the universe; the universe has many centers.
Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie