Book Report: How the Hell Did I Not Know That?

I needed some light and humorous reading this week, so I picked up this book to read before bedtime rather than the depressing memoir I’m reading at other times of the day. How the Hell Did I Not Know That: My midlife year from couch to curiosity, by Lucie Frost, certainly provided me with laughs and gave me other things to think about than cults of personality and so on.

One of my friends from when my kids were younger recommended the book, and I believe most everything this friend says, so I bought it. Lucie Frost lives in San Antonio and is an actual Native Texan (who lived in Mexico for some time as a child, so also speaks Spanish). She is also sort of foul-mouthed in an endearing way, so if you don’t like curse words in your books, skip this one.

The idea here is that Frost retired early, in her 50s, then didn’t know what to do with herself. She came up with the idea of trying to learn new things to get herself to stop bingeing on reality television and wine. Spoiler: she got better.

The fun of the book is going along with Frost’s journey of knowledge, in which she freely admits to being ignorant about things many people know about, but also bravely provides a peek at how her mind functions in coming up with questions to ask. She has a pretty funny mind. My favorite of her discoveries is what the balls for different ball sports were made of when the sports were invented. Hint: animals.

While this may not be the most well-written book on earth, it’s quite entertaining and worth spending some pre-snooze time on. Since she and I have much in common spiritually and philosophically, I probably got more out of the book than some folks I know. But if you’re “a person like Suna,” you can get a good chuckle or two from Frost’s stories, and you’ll heartily agree with her conclusions that by keeping your senses open to new things and living in the world with a curious mindset, you’ll feel a lot better.

Let me know if this was too controversial and I’ll try harder next time. I’m now limiting Facebook/Instagram posts to cute little animals, except for blog links, which mostly will be cute little animals and book reviews for the near future.