Trees of Reverie September Readathon Daily Bookish Challenges Day Seven

What are the genres or types of books that you read least often or not at all?

Self-help books.

These drive me crazy. Every once in a very rare while I’ll pick one up that is interesting, but for the most part, they all just seem so superficial. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies, but I always have an image of someone doing self-affirmations in an old broken down car after watching a terrible infomercial. And then on the flipside, the big haired, too much rouged (male or female both), over the top self-helpernator.

I know they aren’t all like that. But that’s what I see in my head when I walk into that section of the book store.

Political Non-Fiction

My husband loves politics. He’s one of those guys who has an opinion about everything. I both love and hate it when he gets on fire about a subject because 1) he’s super intelligent and it’s kind of sexy when he gets excited. But 2) I usually have no idea what he’s talking about. I’m learning though…and often times…we don’t always agree. Whoops.

Current events, though, has never been my subject. I am much more of a history buff. I am not good with understanding policy, and and I can never remember which side of the teetertoter everything falls on. Sometimes, it all just seems like everyone is arguing the same points.

So, when R buys books about politicians or current events…I feel like I should probably read them…but I never do. They may make it into the order eventually, but they are not the priority.

 

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The Happiness Project

It’s been six days since I started this blog. And so far, I have enjoyed writing this more, and it has been more successful, than any other blog I have tried. I am not sure why it has taken me so long to do a book blog, but I should have started writing about my reading a long time ago.

It is no coincidence that I started the blog the day after beginning The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. You guys should see my journal. I have four pages of notes. This will be a book that I will buy to add to my collection, and one I will read again. While I’m not one to read Self-Help books, this was extremely inspirational and motivating. I wasn’t so sure about it at first, but the more I read, the more charged I felt. I didn’t always agree with everything she said, but she definitely challenged me to change my way of thinking.

Gretchen has a very organized structure to her book. She set a monthly calendar of goals–each month she would have something in her life she would try to change:  marriage, parenting, spirituality, etc. She built upon each month, and then by December, her goal was to have a perfect month where she would live all of her changes.

These breakdowns are what got to me. Some of them were fantastic. Ironically, the parenting chapter I found incredibly educational. Even though my husband and I do not plan on having children, I found some of what she said extremely helpful in how I interact with my niece and nephews.

However, I hated the marriage chapter. I felt the goals were completely unrealistic and cheesy. I felt it cut out too much healthy communication, and instead made her a doormat. I kept picturing those really dumb Marriage Guru couples from the movies. You know the ones I’m talking about. Big hair, mega-watt smiles. And then they always turn out to have a horrible relationship, but in the end are found to be together for the money scam. Maybe it was just the way the chapter was written…but it was just a really bad vibe. Seemed like a horrible formula to me.

Rubin is extremely well read, that’s for sure. She talks about her love for books, constantly. I was able to relate to her on that level quite a bit. And she includes a lot of quotes in her book, from Aristotle and psychology experts alike. I liked that she used a lot of different sources to make her point, without it sounding like a textbook.

This book definitely made me think, which is why I have so many notes. The first thing it did was make me ask myself, “What makes me happy?” Answer:  Reading. “What can I improve upon?” Answer:  Retention and Education.

Solution:  Start taking notes and journal more about what I’m reading, and then blog about it. Do more than just reviews. Interact with people. Maybe join or start a book club.

I am not going to go quite as in depth in my Happiness Project as Rubin did and do the month to month breakdown. However, I am going to be a bit more serious about where my brain is at. Since college, I keep telling myself that I can’t let myself get stagnant. But I do, and then I get bored and depressed. So I’m going to challenge myself to read better and write more. I hope you enjoy reading the blog as much as I do writing it.

 

I am going to leave you all with a question from the May chapter from THP. This question got to me, and I sat down and journaled for quite awhile about it, and I think it’s a good question to ask ourselves.

Q:  “Are you more likely to think about happiness–and to take action to try to build happiness–when everything in your life is going well, or when you’re facing catastrophe? If you’re facing a catastrophe, does it help to think about taking little ordinary steps to build happiness (having lunch with a friend, making your bed in the morning, going outside for a quick walk)? Or are modest efforts like that dwarfed by the magnitude of what you’re facing?”