Tag: books

Better Than Before (2015)

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Gretchen Rubin is perhaps best known for her book, The Happiness Project, where she details the little ways you can actively make yourself a happier person. In line with this idea of being mindful and conscious of improving the quality of your life is Better Than Before, which is about habits.

http://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9780385348638?height=450&alt=no_cover_b4b.gif

Why did Rubin focus so much on habits? She talks a lot about how our habits make up who we are, at the end of the day. These are the actions that we do frequently, reliably, dependably. What are we but the sum of our habits, good and bad? Habits are really powerful because good habits help us be the person we want to be and bad ones often are obstacles to us achieving that goal.

I’m going to go into some issues I had with the book before covering what I really liked.

TL;DR – While nothing Rubin says is revolutionary or particularly novel, and her approach to encouraging habits in other people comes off as really pushy, I really admired her thorough investigation and categorization of personality types and how best to form habits for those types.Read More »

The Tsar of Love and Techno (2015)

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After reading Christine’s glowing review for Anthony Marra‘s latest, The Tsar of Love and Techno, I immediately requested my own copy to read.

tl;dr Anthony Marra has written some of the most gorgeous prose I’ve ever read, and he has used it to craft a stunningly beautiful story. 

Book cover: The Tsar of Love and Techno | Anthony Marra | New York Times Bestselling Author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Henceforth also to be referred to as TLT for brevity.

Read More »

New Reading Challenge?

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Stephanie over at Life In Limbo turned me on to PopSugar’s 2015 Reading Challenge. The idea is to expand your horizons with respects to the types of books you are reading. I know that I often fall into periods where I purposefully seek out similar book: my sci-fi phase, whenever I read a long series like The Boxcar Children, that time I checked out every book about dolphins that my library offered.

This challenge seems really different to me, and I know it would be really challenging for me to complete. Here are some that I found particularly interesting:

  • A book at the bottom of your to-read list
  • A book your mom loves
  • A book that takes place in your hometown
  • A book that came out the year you were born
  • A book with bad reviews
  • A book written by an author with your same initials

It’s a refreshing list that definitely will inject some variety to your reading list. I’m so used to seeing lists that follow a kind of Eat, Pray, Love model of suggesting books that make you laugh, make you cry, make you feel old, make you feel young, whatever. Not that those aren’t good books to read, but this list is a little quirky and I like that.

Stephanie has made a handy dandy Google Doc for you to fill in the titles of the books as you complete the challenge. If you’d like to follow along with PopSugar’s checklist, you can download their printable.

If you want to follow along with my 2015 Reading Challenge (we’ll see if when I complete it!), I am on GoodReads!

P.S. I’ve finished our January books – #GIRLBOSS and Bossypants. What would you recommend for February?

January Book Club – BOSS

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In trying to keep with my annual resolution to read more books, I’ve decided to do a little virtual book club with Christine and Karen.

It seems that, by a happy accident, the theme of the month is BOSS. We will be reading 2 books:

#GIRLBOSS – Sophia Amoruso

Long recommended to me by fans of Lean In and my friends who are more tuned in to the fashion world is Nasty Gal founder and CEO Sophia Amoruso’s manifesto, #GIRLBOSS.

“It’s easy to get the sense, reading Lean In, that Sandberg is writing for women who’ve already made it. #GIRLBOSS is for those who haven’t, which means it is aimed at people who have nothing to lose, which makes it a much riskier and more enjoyable manifesto.”
–New York Magazine / The Cut

In an age where more and more women are demanding what they are owed and what they deserve, I’m so happy to see books like Lean In and #GIRLBOSS get popular and women’s success becomes less of an anomaly and more what should be.

Bossypants – Tina Fey

I would argue that Tina Fey’s hugely successful memoir launched a wave of memoirs and other publications from our current era of TV comedians. (See: Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler, BJ Novak for just a few.) We all know that Tina Fey is a fantastical human being, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about Bossypants. The only reason I haven’t read it yet is that I’ve always been #57 or higher on the waitlist at my library for this book BUT they have it on hold for me right now so I cannot wait to delve into this!

“Tina Fey’s new book Bossypants is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation.”
– Amazon Best Books of the Month April 2011 (Kevin Nguyen)

 

I’m really excited to read these two books. Not only are they by two great women, but it’s been nice for me to start reading non-fiction! I used to be a strictly YA fiction kind of girl, so branching out like this without it being terrible is not unpleasant!

Let us know if you decide to read along with us!
If you’ve read these books already, tell us what you thought!

Favorite Childhood Books (part 1)

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I often find myself wondering if elementary school students today are reading the same books that I was reading back in the day. Even though new books get written, I like to think that some will be read by generations of children who want to read them to their own children someday.

Here are a few of my favorites books from early childhood, mostly pre-elementary to elementary school. I know I’ll have more to add to this soon:

  • The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
  • The Art Lesson by Tomie DePaola
  • Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
  • Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
  • Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
  • If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
  • Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series  by Betty MacDonald
  • Wayside School series by Louis Sachar
    Sideways Stories From Wayside School
  • Max and Ruby series by Rosemary Wells

Honorable mention goes to The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, because it was kind of a tradition for me to read it every holiday season although I don’t remember much about it. (You know that all I really took away from the movie was that stellar hot chocolate musical number.)

Another honorable mention is Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, which I never really loved as a child, to be completely honest. But again, it was kind of a tradition for me to read it when I was young.

Where_The_Wild_Things_Are_(book)_cover.jpg (400×355)

I definitely have more to add, but I’ll leave you with these for now. I had fun reminiscing, so I’ll be back with more!

What were your favorite childhood books? Did I mention any of them? Which ones did I miss? Have you read all of these?