After a slightly rocky start, I found myself quite enjoying this book. It’s a nonfiction book about how people incorporate idiosyncratic, individualized, secular rituals into their lives, everything from the special way they brew their morning coffee, to families’ unique holiday dinner traditions, to marking new lifestyle milestones like a gender transition. Norton and his colleagues (academic researchers) have been exploring how and why people enact rituals, and how secular and individualized rituals are supplanting many of the “legacy rituals” inherited from organized religion. My one quibble with Norton is that I think he’s too cut-and-dried in his distinction between “routine” and “ritual.” In his schema, routines are the “how”: things that are done because they need to be done. Whereas rituals are the “why” or the “something more”: things that are done to impart meaning, evoke emotions, promote bonding, etc. Norton readily accepts that the same action, done by different people, can either be a routine or a ritual, depending on why they’re being done. (You might have a whole ritual surrounding your end-of-day shower, whereas your friend might just consider it a way to wash off the grime.) I think that activities can contain elements of both – they don’t have to be one or the other. But I do appreciate the discussion of how to “ritualize” more activities: to deliberately turn mundane activities into rituals to evoke those emotions or promote bonding with your partner, family, or team. It’s admittedly a pretty niche book, but I’m glad I had the chance to read it.