I haven't found anything as amazing as A Book that Takes its Time for mindfulness journaling, but I did pick up a couple of fun journals to have on hand. Both remind me to slow down and give me excuses to sit around and color when stressed.
Essays
Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley
I discovered Sloane Crosley very late in the game, so I read her first two books last year instead of years ago when I should have. When I found out she had another book of essays coming out, I stalked three libraries to find it and succeeded quickly.
This collection of essays covers everything from rich, loud neighbors to retired porn stars. (Crosley's not-quite uncle was a porn star whose birth name is Johnny Seeman. Yep.) She explores what it's like to stumble across swingers in California and to appear as herself on Gossip Girl. She does all this with humor, wit, and insights that don't feel forced. That's her genius, and she's only gotten better at her craft over the last decade.
I was surprised to find out Crosley has Meniere's disease, the same vestibular disorder I have, and her descriptions of vertigo were so precise that I feared I might start spinning just reading her essay. I recommend her work to everyone and this, her best work to date, is perfection.
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
I am almost too overwhelmed to even attempt a review of Smiths' essays. She is highly intelligent while still being accessible. She is not immune to her own shortcomings or limited thoughts, yet she's not self-deprecating in the way we usually see it done. She's aware, smart, and a very skilled writer who looks at any subject she tackles with the most comprehensive view possible before sharing her thoughts.
This book is over 400 pages but is broken into five parts depending on the topic. Every time I finished a section I was sure it was my favorite, only to make it to the end of the book to say I can't choose. I wouldn't want to have missed any of it.
Smith can discuss any issue, but she can see the issue beyond the issue and wrestle with that as well. Her commentary on the recent hit movie Get Out sits alongside views about Brexit and writers using their own lives to inspire work. She writes about books, politics, and the dynamic of the family, concluding that no matter the family experience "the family is a violent event." Her closing essay on joy versus pleasure nearly undid me, and I can't wait to read more by Smith as I was very late to discover her mastery.
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan
Essays won it for me this month, and Corrigan's hilarious, thoughtful book helped get them there. Corrigan tells readers about the 12 phrases she is trying to say more, whether encouraging her child or a friend to express their emotions by asking for more information or getting rid of the craziness in life by simply saying no.
This is my first book by Corrigan, so I didn't know what to expect. I am now about to raid every library in my area for everything she has ever written. She comes off as an honest, smart, witty friend who isn't afraid to talk about the times she's stumbled in order to help us get it right.
Yes, yes, and yes to this one. Read it once with a highlighter, and then read it again.
Non-fiction
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris, Jeffrey Warren, and Carlye Adler
I've had a very flirtatious relationship with mediation for a while now. I like the idea of it. I like all the benefits it offers. I like thinking of myself as someone who can sit still and find my Zen. However, it's only been in the last couple of months that my relationship with meditation has moved to the next level, and this book helped get it there.
Harris had a panic attack on live television in front of millions of viewers, and that started his journey to meditation. It's been so life changing for him that he went on a road trip to address people's concerns and excuses as to why they don't meditate. Along the way, he offered answers and assistance for how to get started and keep the practice alive for the long term.
Along for the journey was yoga expert, Jeff Warren, who writes easy-to-follow meditations for different situations that will guide readers who want to get started or elevate their practice. This book is a hilarious story, a wonderful how-to, and just plain fun. I am working through all the meditations in the book and feeling more confident now that Harris and crew helped clear up many meditation misconceptions for me.
Harris and Warren are also honest about life after meditation. It's generally more focused, calmer, but meditation doesn't mean we suddenly don't have bad days or that our old demons don't come back to haunt us. We're just equipped with better tools to handle them when we meditate.
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
Why do we feel compelled to make resolutions on January 1st? When is the best time to perform certain types of work? Are you a lark or an owl? Pink attempts to answer these questions and offers information to help us understand how beginnings, middles, breaks, and ends play a huge role in our lives.
Pink ends each chapter with a handbook to help apply the strategies he's discussed. I very much appreciated this since each chapter is full of useful information that is much easier to use when a quick, scannable plan for action is offered. If you like research and need an official, data-backed reason to take an afternoon siesta, this is a great read.
Warning: you will NEVER schedule medical procedures in the afternoon again.
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
I love the concept of Swedish death cleaning, and even wrote about it here. So imagine my surprise when I did not love this book. I really wanted to, but it didn't work for me.
Death cleaning involves taking care of your earthly items so your loved ones won't have to go through it all when you're dead. It's considerate, and you don't have to wait until you're knocking on death's door to death clean. Adopting minimalist tendencies and making conscious decisions about purchases is a great way to make sure you never accumulate more than you need. If you start to acquire too much, practice some death cleaning.
The concept is easy, but Magnusson's meandering narrative about her death cleaning didn't interest me. I am used to books about tidying or minimizing containing a bit of narrative and a lot of practical tips. This felt more like a story about Magnusson that centered around her life with some death cleaning thoughts thrown in for good measure. That threw me.
Her advice to keep one vibrator instead of 15 is sound because finding that one is going to do your kids enough damage, but I didn't pick up any other super useful tips from this book.
If you want to tidy up, I recommend The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Goodbye, Things New Minimalism or Soul Simplicity, which I review below.
The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia Laing
I read The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone last year and was so taken by Laing's study of art and loneliness that I still think about her words. "The Trip to Echo Spring" had much the same effect. Laing wrote this one first and focused on writers and alcohol, a pairing that is much too common.
I find that though her books hover around the 300 page mark, I have to read them slowly. There is so much information: the research she has done on her subjects, the conclusions she draws, what she observes when she travels, and her own personal narrative, that I like to take in small amounts of material and let my brain marinate in it before moving on.
Laing focuses on Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, John Berryman, and Tennessee Williams. At times these authors' lives overlap, and somehow Laing weaves all six of their stories into her book seamlessly while also visiting locations that were meaningful to the writers.
Her exploration of alcohol is sobering, and this book falls into a category best described as melancholy, as does "The Lonely City". If you have time and the desire, follow Laing wherever she leads. Her insight is priceless and often beautiful.
Soul Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver
Carver was diagnosed with MS and forced to decide how she wanted to live with this chronic condition. Stress makes it worse, so Carver set to overhaul her life, cutting back on debt, purchases, possessions, stress, and bad habits. The goal was to live simply, and she devised a plan to make life simple across every possible aspect of her life in order to make the most of her health and her time.
Years later she is helping others find ways to live simple, soulful lives. I loved this book because D and I have been on the simplicity journey for a while, deciding what to keep, what to toss, and how to build a life around our values. It's a never-ending process, so I find that having a book around to continue to help motivate us is always good.
Carver's book is extensive and offers ways to help readers implement simplicity practices into their everyday lives. Grab it and get ready to chunk the excess and embrace the soulful simplicity of each moment.
Fiction
The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon
Cassie and Margaret couldn't be more different. Living in Jordan with their military husbands, Cassie is the one who has been there for a while and follows the rules. Margaret is the newcomer who thinks she can figure out how to adapt following her own set of rules. Their unlikely friendship leads to a study of human relationships and reminds us that every decision we make has a consequence.
When Cassie and Margaret are involved in a minor car accident, Cassie keeps Margaret's young son while she goes to clear up the paperwork. When Margaret doesn't return in a timely manner, we see the story of their friendship unfold in flashbacks that lead the reader into a complicated web of jealousy, desire, and pain.
Fallon does a wonderful job creating rich, multidimensional characters. Nothing feels contrived and everything that happens moves like dominoes falling, leading to an inevitable conclusion. I picked this one up on a whim, and I'm really glad I did.
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
Cedar was adopted and raised by two kind liberal do-gooders, but she seeks to find her birth family upon finding out she's pregnant. There's also the issue of her pregnancy occurring when evolution is reversing, offering babies who are a different species of human when they survive at all.
During any major event, humans and systems don't always shine, and that's true here. A registry is started to bring in pregnant women so they can be monitored, and neighbors start turning people in for rewards. As the story of what could be the end of the world occurs, Cedar attempts to keep her baby safe, leaning on her biological and adopted family to help her when they can.
This story touches on the dangers of technology, climate change, and militarized churches. It is original and horrifying, but the fact that it is written as a journal for Cedar's unborn child offers the reader some of the ridiculous human optimism that Cedar, and many other humans, hold onto in times of despair.
I read this one over many days, only able to absorb so much. It's a shattering, human story, and Erdrich presents it perfectly.
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
This book has a lot of buzz around it, and it's well deserved. Protagonist Tom Hazard was born in the 1500s but is still alive, looking quite young, in the 21st century. He's one of those rare humans who doesn't age on a normal schedule, and that has made his life long but not easy.
When he's introduced to The Albatross Society, he's offered a way to move every few years before anyone takes notice of his lack of aging. The only condition is that he has to perform certain tasks for the society. Driven by fear of things that have occurred in his past due to his eternal youth, he joins.
This is an interesting story that has flashbacks from Hazard's time knowing Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but it's more than that. Days after reading this, I was shocked by the symbolism, how Hendrich, the leader of The Albatross Society, is a stand-in for America, a fear driven person with a for-us-or-against-us mentality. Hazard's past experiences exacerbate his fear, allowing him to overlook evil for what he views as safety with Hendrich.
Though a work of fiction, Haig captures much about the human condition and offers profound insight about time and how we respond to our limited amount.
The longer you live, the more you realise that nothing is fixed. Everyone will become a refugee if they live long enough...everyone would realise that the thing that defines a human being is being a human.
Haig's words are an important message for our time.
The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman
Rachman tells the story of Charles "Pinch" Bavinsky, son of famous artist Bear Bavinsky. Bear's art comes first, before his children, his many wives, or any other earthly obligation. When Charles attempts to become an artist like his father, one sentence destroys his dream and sends him on a journey to find his place in the world.
Rachman creates flawed characters that the reader will still care about. Pinch's longing for his father is desperate and hard to read, and even when readers wonder what Pinch is thinking they still can't forget the situation he came from and throw him some grace.
The book also explores the idea of art, what it is, what it means, and who gets to decide what art matters. The pacing felt off at times, with Rachman seeming to narrate us quickly from one place to another, but the book overall is a solid, thoughtful read.
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