On The Wild Side

Reading Vera Koo’s new book, Wisdom and Things, is like having a kind – and more skilled and experienced – friend offer you small bits of advice. Even better, the advice doesn’t come in the form of advising. Instead, it’s there like little gifts for you to find throughout this very digestible collection of short stories, practical observations and musings. They all showcase the author’s thoughtful introspection about what she has learned in her life, and how this nurtures the ever-expanding horizons she sees before her. 

Koo opens her new book with a hint: “I have come to realize how deeply your attitude affects your life. It is my believe that life is 20 percent what happens, and 80 percent how we react.” This, from a woman who, among many other major life events, has reached the very top of a profession by competing worldwide with the men who dominate it, and who has also lived through and with unspeakable tragedy.