The Happiness Project
Gretchen Rubin
Rubin is a book-dork and I love her for it. Like me, when she has a problem to solve her first reaction is to find a book on the topic. After deciding that, on the whole, her life is good but there were areas that need work, Rubin set out to do some research. Dividing up her life into categories she thought deserved a polish, Rubin set out to find solutions to her problems. What she came up with some wonderful ideas. More importantly, she came up with some of her own life truths:
What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you — and vice versa.
What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE
Plus commandments such as:
Do it now.
Let it go.
Spend out (spend money to make life better).
Some may apply to...
Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert
As long as your brain’s guess about the next word turns out to be right, turning black squiggles into ideas, scenes, characters, and concepts, blissfully unaware that your nexting brain is predicting the future of the sentence at a fantastic rate. It is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel avocado.
That is, surprised. See?
Human minds are weird. Half of what we perceive is fictionalized by our mind for us. Even the most logical of minds makes strange errors and creates story lines. Gilbert does an excellent job of pointing out the ways our minds fool, confuse and console us. He points to studies on happiness that...
Half-Assed: A Memoir
Jeanette Fulda
I have long been a fan of the blog pastaqueen.com and loved every minute of Fulda’s book. Topping out at nearly 400 lbs, Jeannette decided to loose over half her body weight. However, instead of the usual attempts – weight loss surgery, liquid diet, WeightWatchers/Atkins/Grapefruit Diet – she did what so few people ever try. She ate less and exercised more. What makes her so wonderful to read is that she never hated herself, even at her most unhealthy times. She rarely berates herself just gently eases into trying new things and going it bit further. For a self-proclaimed homebody she certainly has made a huge impact on many people. The scorching ...
Do Everything Better (Urawaza)
Lisa Katayama
Urawaza is a secret or trick to do things better – life-hacking. This collection of Urawaza offers a myriad of ideas to fix and do things in a cheap and easy way – often as alternatives to a more standard way. For instance, have glass all over the floor? Don’t try to sweep or mop it up, but use a piece of soft bread to gently lift up the shards. Other tips are equally practical. Cat scratching your table legs? Wrap them in rope. Candle wax in the carpet? Use layers of paper and an iron to soak the wax out. Others seem a bit more iffy. I doubt I’ll stick scallions up my nose to clear congestion, nor do I think I will rub white shoe-polish ...
U-Turn:What if You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You were Living the Wrong Life?
U-Turn:What if You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You were Living the Wrong Life? - Bruce Grierson
The epically long title of this books reflects the equally massive amount of information in this book. A hair under 300 pages it manages to pack in a dense, and truly fascinating, amount of information. A u-turner is someone who makes a radical change in their life – often swinging 180 degrees to a full polar opposite of their former beliefs. Many of the u-turners switch on strong stances as religion – becoming Christian on a walk, leaving Evangelicalism to become an atheist writer. Some swing wildly on politics – one day an ardent Republican, the next ...
Helping Me Help Myself
Helping Me Help Myself - Beth Lisick
When I cracked open Helping Me Help Myself my first thought was “Oh, this is EXACTLY the same as Jennifer Niesslein’s Practically Perfect in Every Way.” While the premise is identical – woman decides to get her act together via self-help books and write a book about it – the voices of the two are very different. Equally as amusing and Niesslein, Lisick takes a crack at getting her finances together, clean up her house, exercise and stop her son’s tantrums. Unlike Niesslein, Lisick and her husband have a much more precarious existence. She is mouthier, louder, ruder and much more likely to take ...