My Reading Year 2020

In 2020 I read a measly 11 books. I'm not too upset about that as I'm amazed I managed to get any reading done at all. When goodreads told me in early January I read that many I thought to myself, what were they?

 

Unsurprisingly, three of out of the 11 were related to parenting, since as a new parent, that's something I'm trying to learn about it. And one of them was on potty training, which was essential. This isn't a parenting blog, so I won't go into any detail, but it was a good year to do this, what with having to be at home so much! 

The way we used to live (above). The way we live now (below).

Five of the books were book club books, as I made an attempt to keep up my reading so I could contribute to the group discussions (which happened virtually in 2020). I'm actually in two book groups now, something I have no business whatsoever in doing, as I can barely keep up with the reading for one. But a good friend asked me to join one she was starting up and I just really wanted to, so there you are. (I hope someone from my original book group reads this, as I've been too scared to tell them - feel like I'm cheating. Keep wanting to bring it up, and then I chicken out.)

The last three books were research for my fiction writing. There were also many, many abandoned attempts at reading other books - too many to discuss or list. Let's just chalk it up to the pandemic. The big category that was missing for me last year: fiction I want to read. I think that should be something to add more of in 2021. 

My New Year's resolution is to really allow myself to start reading again. I've decided to do the Happier podcast reading challenge this year: reading 21 minutes every day. I find small habits like these really add up over the long term. And so far in 2021, I've done it. Even if it means I have to stay up way later than I should.

If you're interested in what I read this year, here's the full list with links to my (very short) Goodreads reviews:

1. Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater 

2. Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News by Emily Maitlis

3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 

4. The 8-minute Writing Habit: Create a Consistent Habit That Works With Your Busy Lifestyle (Growth Hacking for Storytellers) by Monica Leonelle

5. The Truth about Medium: Extraordinary Experiments with the Real Allison DuBois of NBC's Medium and Other Remarkable Psychic by Gary E. Schwartz with William Simon

6. Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsessions by by Apostolos Doxiadis

7. The Five: The Lives of Jack the Ripper's Women by Hallie Rubenhold

8. How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

9. Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki

10. Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler: Tackling These Crazy Awesome Years—No Time-outs Needed by Jamie Glowacki

11. Babysitters Club Collection #1 by Ann M. Martin

What did you read and what would you recommend? Get in touch or comment. Happy reading in 2021! 

2

My Reading Year - 2019

In 2019, I read 12 books, which I think isn't too bad going for a year in which I spent most of my time taking care of a baby. Audio books were a godsend -- I did a lot of "reading" while pushing a pram around the mean streets of Streatham, on my way to swimming lessons and sensory classes.

This also explains why four of the 12 books were parenting ones -- two on weaning, one on talking to toddlers and the last on everything in-between from the Baby Whisperer. I'm not sure I read 100% of the latter as I skipped around so much, but I did read many sections more than once as I grasped for some way to get the Little Guy to sleep through the night or wake up later in the morning. So I'm definitely counting it.

It turned out to be a very non-fiction kind of year -- 10 of the 12 were from that category. Although I wouldn't say that meant that they were boring. In fact, quite the opposite. The Spy and the Traitor from Ben MacIntyre was riveting, Educated by Tara Westover was jaw-dropping, and Death at the Priory by James Ruddick made quite the impact on me as I walked nearby to where it all took place in Balham. A crime that was equivalent in popularity to the real-crime docudramas people binge watch today.

The only non-fiction read that I'm sure others might mock me for, was the classic self-help Getting Things Done, which I actually found extremely helpful. Enough to have written a full post on it, which I haven't published yet, so not sure if I can win the prize for getting things done. But watch this space.

I seemed to enjoy everything I read - my average rating for 2019 was 4.3 stars (out of five). I gave five of the books five stars, six of them four stars and only one three stars. Perhaps I was just ecstatic to be reading anything.

There were also quite a few unfinished books that littered my reading path. My treat of reading a Marian Keyes book by the pool was not very successful. I only read half of it when the Hub and I took turns sitting by the pool reading in 20 minute intervals during our holiday. Then I never picked it up again. I will now have to re-read the whole thing this year by the pool and not get to the second half again.

I also abandoned Kill Your Friends, which I was reading for a second time for book club. I forgot how violent and sexuality explicit it was -- now that I'm a mom I was shocked!

And Andre Agassi's autobiography: so long. I'd still like to finish it, but I think I started it back in 2018, so let's see. 

If you're interested in the detail, below is a full list of the books with a link to my (short) Goodreads reviews. Happy reading in 2020 everyone!

1. Death at the Priory: Love, Sex and Murder in Victorian England by James Ruddick

2. Educated by Tara Westover

3. Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make More Room for Happiness by Gretchen Rubin

4. Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food by Gill Rapley 

5. The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben MacIntyre

6. Weaning Made Easy Baby-Led and Purees Your Way by Rana Conway

7. The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: Sleeping, Feeding and Behaviour -- Beyond the Basics, from Infancy to Toddlerhood by Tracey Hogg & Melinda Blau

8. Becoming Whole by Mindy Tsai

9. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

10. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

11. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

12. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber & Julie King

2

My Reading Year

After reading my New Year's Resolution post, one of my readers asked me more specifically about which 28 books I read in 2017, so this post is for him (and the rest of you too).

(As an aside: I love getting reader requests for blog posts. If you have something you want me to write about, please comment or email me at mindbodyandscroll [at] yahoo.com.)

It's easy to see what I read this year as I keep track on goodreads. I love this site as I can see what my other reader friends are reading and I can also keep track of books I want to read as well. In my list of books at the bottom of this post I've linked to my (very short) reviews on the site. Although in fairness, they are not so much reviews as my thoughts on each book.

Some stats on my year:

• 28 books equated to 7,668 pages. 
• I gave 14% of the books five stars, 53% four stars, 29% three stars and 4% one star (this was only one book: The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman. I cannot recommend it.)
• The list was almost evenly split between fiction and non-fiction, although non-fiction edged ahead at 54% .  
• The longest book I read was A Little Life and the shortest: Why Yoga Works.
• Eight books (29%) were for my book group (in the list below I have marked these with an asterisk).
• I know personally the authors of five books I read this year (18%). And hopefully I will be meeting the author of one more book in April when she visits London! 
• Six of the books (21%) were independently published. 

It's really hard to pick a favorite book of the year, but I probably should. The winner in this case is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

And two books I read were related to research for my novel. One was written by a psychic profiler and one by a shaman. (Have I mentioned that my novel is a cross between chick lit and Gothic horror?)

And now, for the full list (in the order I read them):

1. Ark Baby* by Liz Jensen

2. A Thousand Cuts: A Spike Sanguinetti Novel by Thomas Mogford

3. Swimming Home* by Deborah Levy

4. The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes

5. Hidden Figures* by Margot Lee Shetterly

6. The Reluctant Shaman by Kay Cordell Whitaker

7. March* by Geraldine Brooks

8.  A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

9.  Why Yoga Works by Cinnamon Kennedy

10. Tales from Suburbia by Claire Buss

11. Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

12. Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos

13. The Line of Beauty* by Alan Hollinghurst

14. The Lives and Loves of a He Devil by Graham Norton

15. The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman* by Denis Theriault

16. The Rose Thief by Claire Buss

17. The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

18. An Angel on Her Shoulder by Dan Alatorre

19. Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

20. A Walk in the Woods* by Bill Bryson

21. Don't Kiss Them Goodbye by Allison DuBois

22. A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

23. The Town Below the Ground by Jan-Andrew Henderson

24. The One Thing by Gary Keller

25. Alias Grace* by Margaret Atwood

26. Escape the Cubicle by Sukhi Jutla

27. Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n Roll and a Tiara by Beverly Diehl

28. The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

*A Northern Line Book Group book

What did you read in 2017? What would you recommend?

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2

The Only Rule

I can almost see the finish line. I think I'm less than two chapters away from finishing the initial draft of my first complete novel. I did write a novel when I was about ten, but some of my friends contributed chapters, so I suppose that doesn't count. And believe me, no one wants to read that novel.

Like many other aspiring writers I know, the daily writing habit has long eluded me. It's freakin' hard. But I knew I had to get there in the end, otherwise books would not happen. I'm certainly not perfect yet, and it's not happening every single day, but I am getting much, much closer.

What's made the difference?

I implemented a rule. Everyday I have to sit down for 30 minutes at my little writing desk in the study (this happens at 10 p.m. on weeknights and usually at some point in the morning on the weekends). I don't have to write, but I have to sit there, and I'm not allowed to do anything else. I can read what I've written already or just think about the story, but that's it.

Luckily, because I'm there, words often do end up on the page. Maybe not a lot, but sometimes a couple hundred. Over the days, those word counts really do add up.

And another benefit: writing everyday keeps me in the story. When I used to only write at weekends it took so long to get back into it. Now I feel much more like I'm living and breathing the narrative.

This strategy has helped me with writing, but I think people can use it for anything really. One of my friends is taking weekly French lessons (via Skype) and is loving it. But she wanted to listen to French radio daily to help with her listening comprehension. She said it was hard to get herself to do it so regularly -- even though once she started listening, she enjoyed it. I suggested that she use a similar method, but set the bar even lower. She just had to listen for one or two minutes -- all she really had to do was put her headphones in and tune in on her phone.

She tried it and told me that it was working: once she started, she usually ended up listening for the 15 minutes that was her goal.

I'm not sure where this resistance to starting things comes from, but it's amazing how easy it can also be to trick ourselves. Lucky I'm so dim witted that I'll sit down at my writing desk even when I don't want to write.

Another key part of this routine for me was letting the Hub know this had to happen and asking him to remind me it was time to write. (According to Gretchen Rubin's habit framework, I am an obliger, which means I need external accountability.) The Hub now knows that at 10 p.m. I can't watch just-one-more episode of whatever series we're bingeing on. Even when I'm tempted to skip, his asking "Aren't you writing tonight?" is often that kick I need to remember that it's the rule. And sometimes, as an added bonus, I even get out of doing the washing-up (dishes) or taking the rubbish (garbage) out. Being the tortured artist in the relationship at the moment certainly has its benefits.

Photo credit: Alicia Chenaux - Ch'Know Blogs Writer's Block via photopin (license)

2

The Reading Habit

I debated a few months ago on the blog whether or not I should be finishing all the books I start reading. I even asked readers their opinion and was surprised at what my informal survey showed: that a lot of people really do read most books to the end.

In what has turned out to be an additional 2017 New Year's resolution, I have decided to read every book I start this year to the end, even if I'm not loving it. (For my other New Year's resolution, read this post.)

And so far, I'm finding it to be a completely rewarding practice. The reason: I think I had just developed a really bad habit. It wasn't that I was stopping reading books I genuinely disliked, it was that I was giving up way too early on anything that wasn't immediately gratifying. I obnoxiously think I have a great attention span, but the reality was that I was engaged in some sort of strange grass-is-greener thing, wanting to move onto a different book all the time. 

It was definitely a bad habit. 

Turns out, I'm really enjoying getting to "the end". It's more satisfying and it's actually amazingly helpful to be reading novels all the way through when you're trying to write your own (shocking I know!). 

If you want to see what I'm reading at any one moment, you can find me on Goodreads here. I also always write short reviews on there.  

In other news, I wanted to let you all know that I am launching a Mind, Body & Scroll monthly newsletter, with some extra content and links to things I'm finding interesting. If you subscribe to the blog already, you will automatically receive it. If you don't, and would like it, you can subscribe to the blog (see right-hand side "subscribe" box), sign up on my author website www.taronwade.com, or you can email me at mindbodyandscroll [at] yahoo [dot] com and I will add you to the list. The first one will go out Monday morning, so subscribe before then to receive it. 

In the meantime, if you haven't weighed in on whether or not you finish books to the end, please do!  

Photo credit: Stephanie Booth Bookworm Kitty 12 via photopin (license)

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From Beta Reader to Book Launch

I had the pleasure of attending a very special book launch a few weeks ago. My friend Claire Buss is officially an independent author with a published book!

I’ve known Claire for years now – we met through our book group – and she is my hero of the moment.

Claire entered a competition at Barking Library, called the Pen to Print Book Challenge and wrote her debut novel The Gaia Effect in only five months after being selected as one of the eight finalists. She won second place in the competition, and her prize was a self-published book deal using New Generation Publishing.

The book is about a group of friends living in a post-apocalyptic society where everything is controlled by a corporation -- including the continuation of the human race. But when women start falling pregnant naturally it raises questions about the corporation and the interaction between the characters and the natural world.

Here is Claire answering probing questions about her book and her life as a writer at the launch:

She asked me to be a beta reader, so I read her novel twice – once in the summer of 2015 when I was floating down the Nile on our cruise ship and again this past summer after she had made significant revisions. It was a great experience to give her feedback and see how her writing and the book had evolved.

Claire’s a full-time Mum to son Leo and now she’s also a full-time author, killing it on marketing her book and herself as an indie author. Oh, she’s also an amazing baker, and made a tea loaf-cake thing that was super delicious for our last book group meeting. I don’t know how she does it.

I learned her secret at the book launch: she absolutely loves her new author life. It’s been her dream and you could hear the excitement in her voice as she talked about all the ideas she has for new books, including the one she just finished drafting called The Rose Thief. How much do you love that title? I can’t wait to read it. Hopefully I did a good job as beta reader and will be asked again…

For more information and to buy her book, click here.

Claire is really inspiring me at the moment. I had the day off Friday, straight after the launch, and I got up and wrote first thing. The fact that she’s done the hard graft and is selling books – to people she doesn’t even know – is incredibly inspiring.

In other news, one of my other friends, Thomas Mogford, who’s traditionally published, has a new book out too. It’s the fifth in the Spike Sanguinetti crime series, called A Thousand Cuts. You don’t have to read the other four first though – this one works as a standalone – so buy it and if you like it, you can go back and read the earlier ones. What I like about Tom's work is that his characterization is brilliant - I am really attached to Spike and his clan. And this novel has a fascinating historical fiction element to it as well.

Don't you love the cover? You can judge a book by its cover in this case. I was reading it on the tube and this man across from me kept looking at it, trying to see what it was. I hope he buys it. Check out Tom and his work here.

What clever friends I have. Thanks for the inspiration Claire and Tom!

2

Getting to "The End"

Last time on the blog I asked readers if they always finish books they are reading or if they put them down if they're not enjoying them enough. I was surprised at the results of my mini-survey. I know it's not a statistically significant sample, but of the seven people who responded, five said they always finish the book.

Maybe my survey just says more about the people who read my blog. But I am very happy to take their advice.

Their reasons? They wanted to know the ending. They wanted to give the book a decent chance even if they didn't like it at first, and by then they were too invested to not want to finish.

"A finished book is not a waste of time but a notch on your belt that you can be proud of," said one. "Unfinished books look at me like dirty laundry or naked light bulbs needing shades."

 Another one added, "I'm no quitter!"

And the two that said they didn't always finish, one at least peaked at the last 30 pages or so to find out the ending.

I guess the question to ask myself is: why I am reading that book in the first place?

I've been a member of a book club now for 13 years. And although the reasons for belonging are numerous, one is that it forces me to read books I wouldn't always pick up. There have been so many books over the years that I have loved in spite of myself -- and many of them seem to fall into the science fiction category. For some reason I don't think I like science fiction, but apparently I do (those that spring to mind are Isaac Asimov short stories, Ender's Game, Ready Player One and The Martian).

And sometimes when I haven't finished the book by the meeting -- and I am notorious for finishing books on the tube on the way there (hey journalists need deadlines to get anything done!) -- I do finish reading it after the meeting. Particularly after I have heard everyone talking about it. I don't even mind spoilers. I find I'm never reading a book to find out how it ends. It's almost not important to me. Instead it's all about the reading experience,which is potentially why I do find it difficult to finish a book I'm not enjoying.

But as an aspiring long-form writer, I need to be reading a lot more than I am.

So I'm prepared to do an experiment on myself in 2017. I'm going to try reading all books I start to the end, no matter what. Also because if it's a book I want to read I'm clearly reading it for a reason.

At the moment I am reading three. And if you want to see what I am reading, you can find me on Goodreads -- under "Taron". You can be sure it's me by the photo where I am accompanied by a large plate of mozzarella sticks. (Although do let me know if I should be posting my short reviews on the blog as well.)

Book group meets this Tuesday and I'm only 48% of the way through the book. Looks like it's going to be a busy reading weekend for me.

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The Three Rs

The expression the three Rs -- reading, writing and arithmetic -- which any American would know, was (according to Wikipedia) coined first by a member of parliament in Britain back in the late 1700s or early 1800s.

Of course it was, considering its irony.

It's almost my three-month anniversary in my new job (on Valentine's Day, funny enough, and I do love my new job). I've certainly been doing a lot of of the three Rs in this new role, as well as a few other "Rs" as well, like Relationship management and eating more in Restaurants.

So much of this job is familiar to me, including the building I work in, and some of the people I work with, that it's deceptive. On some days I feel like I don't have a new position at all and on others I feel exhausted, confused and that there's so much work ahead. When I told the Hub I was approaching the three-month mark he said, "Really, that's all?"

I took this as a good sign, meaning that I don't appear to be having any sort of breakdown, at least from the outside.

And I'm not.

But I did ask a friend, who started a new role in her company relatively recently, how long it would take before it was less all-consuming. She said after three months I'd be less bone tired for sure. And after six, I'd have enough of a clue that normal service could resume.

I'm starting to look forward to "normal service". Particularly on the personal reading and writing front. I haven't been doing enough of either, although I'm trying to give myself a break. I've been doing some, and that's got to be good enough for now.

But along that vein, I wanted to take the opportunity to ask you lovely readers your opinion on something: as time is a precious commodity do you tend to finish every book you read until the end? Or do you allow yourself to stop reading books?

I tend towards the latter and put down books I don't like or can't get into and I wonder if this is the right approach for an aspiring author. It is a decisive question and I'm interested in how everyone approaches it. And while you think about it (and hopefully comment), I've finally, finally got two free hours ahead of me to work on the novel, so I better hop to it.

2

A New Mindful Year

I recently received a reader question: I've been meaning to ask if there is a book or two (or podcast?) that you recommend on the topics of meditation/mindfulness? I know there are tons out there, just curious which ones you liked.

Oh boy, what a good question, I thought. All the answers are somewhere on my blog, but you'd have to go and look. So (of course) I've done the work for you. 

The first book I always recommend to people is Richard Carlson's Stop Thinking, Start Living. I am looking at my bookshelf now and I actually have two copies there as I lent it to so many people that I bought a second copy to keep for reference. Recently someone gave one back to me. (If anyone wants to borrow one let me know.)

His more popular, digestible books are the Don't Sweat The Small Stuff series. The first one I ever read was Don't Sweat The Small Stuff at Work, given to me by my aunt when I was having a terrible time at work. But I think that Stop Thinking, Start Living gives such a good base for the concept of mindfulness that it's a really good one to start with. He's very intellectual but also knows how to explain what can be at first a very foreign concept in a simple, understandable way.

I also really like Eckhardt Tolle's A New Earth. (Read my blog post about it here.) Tolle also wrote the Power of Now, but I like A New Earth slightly better. Although there's a really weird chapter near the end about pain-bodies. It's kind of out there. Just saying. 

The thing about mindfulness, however, is that although I did a lot of reading on it, I felt that putting it into practice was almost impossible until I started meditating regularly. Because our thoughts (created by the ego) are so strong that unless you "practice" seeing them for what they are, it's really hard. 

My favorite book on meditation is 10% Happier by Dan Harris. (Blog post link here.) I think I like it so much because it's also a memoir and he has a good story to tell. He recommends quite a few authors in there too, which is good. I read Mark Epstein's Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change, which I thought was a refreshing look at Buddhism from the perspective of a Westerner trained as a Freudian psychoanalyst. 

In terms of podcasts, I would also highly recommend Dan Harris' podcast of the same name: 10% Happier.

Thanks Elizabeth for the question! Hope my answer is helpful. 

Never hesitate to ask me a question on facebook, twitter or at mindbodyandscroll[at]yahoo[dot]com.

Photo credit: Buddha statue in meditation pose, robe, blue, concrete, Lake City Way, Seattle, Washington, USA via photopin (license)

0

Radio Days

Over the summer I divulged my curiosity about reading via audio books in How To Read.

Enamored with the fact that I can listen to podcasts while I walk around London or sit on the train while staring out the window, I was determined to try the concept of reading books this way. 

I thought, what better time to try this than during our Epic American Trip? I signed up for Audible's free month's trial and downloaded one of the books on my 2016 personal reading list (State of Wonder by Ann Patchett if you're curious). 

I was flying to the States on my own before the Hub, so I was surprised to find listening to a book very pleasant in the early hours on my own at Heathrow airport. I sipped my latte and sat in an armchair at one of the cafes as someone read me a story. It was also very good for filling all the "downtime" of being at an airport, such as queuing (lining) up to board.

Later on during our trip I was also excited to listen to the book on the bus from Chicago to Wisconsin (yes, we took a bus from one state to another). This was where I found out about the downside of listening to an audio book: it put me right to sleep. And then I would wake up and not know where I had fallen asleep. For the rest of the trip I didn't really listen to the book (I read a short non-fiction book on my Kindle app on my phone). I never started the paperback I had brought. 

When we returned to London, I wasn't really convinced about how I would really use audio books in my usual routine. I cancelled my subscription. However, when I bought my book club book for September -- Burmese Days by George Orwell -- Amazon offered me the option of getting the audio book for only GBP1 extra. I thought, why not? I had heard about how you could switch back and forth between the text version and the audio as the items would be synced. 

And I discovered something ground-breaking. Because I was so behind on everything when we got back from our trip, I was really rushed for time to finish the novel. I started reading it and realized I was never going to finish in the just over a week I had left. The problem: I was having trouble getting into it. And then I switched to audio. Miraculously, because it was a more passive activity, it got me into the book. I was hooked. So then I switched back to text (I can read a lot faster than someone can read out loud, as most of us can) and finished the book a day before the meeting.

This was a shock for most of my fellow bookclubbers. I am notorious for finishing the book on the tube on the way to our meeting. 

I am planning to start doing this a lot. Buying the audio along with the text just gives me that extra optionality to switch back and forth on whatever makes more sense . Clever, clever sales strategy Amazon. I have been taken in. 

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Photo credit: davidmulder61 Day 270. Earbuds. via photopin (license)

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How To Read

Reading, as I'm sure you've gathered, is one of my favorite activities.

Recently I've been struggling with carving out the time. It's happening with my book group books as well as the books I have on my own personal reading list. And this is especially disappointing after getting very excited about 10 fiction books I really wanted to read this year, and then succeeding at reading a very impressive total of one so far (to see the list, visit my nascent author page here).

In total, I've read nine books in 2016. To some people who read this blog that might seem like a lot. And to others it might seem like very few. But there's a very important reason that I care about this number. It's just a fact that if you want to be writing, you have to be reading -- regularly.

Usually I read books on my way home from the office (the morning is for work reading). But recently, every night after a long day, I just can't concentrate on the written word. Instead, I cop out by listening to podcasts. There is something incredibly restful after a long day of staring at a screen to listen and free up your eyes to look at your surroundings.

So I am considering delving (finally) into the realm of the audio book. It's not a new concept of course. I remember listening to books on tape in the car with my Mom, and when I was a very little kid I would always fall asleep with the record player spinning out the amazing Sesame Street fairy tales. And of course my parents always read to me when I was small, which I suppose is really the same thing. 

I've written before about the recent podcast craze and I think it's taking us all back in time a bit -- to being much more eager to listen to content, like in the days where people sat around the radio in the evening. I think it's a welcome break from the constant barrage of visual content where we are always looking at screens, including those little computers we carry with us everywhere.

I'm curious to find out how listening might change my experience of consuming a book. And it reminds me that humans have told stories verbally for a long longer time than they have been reading them on the page. 

Like anything, I'm sure there are books that are better for listening to -- at this point I'm not considering reading non-fiction books this way. I would probably find it irritating as I read non-fiction books much faster than fiction. 

Will have a try and circle back to you at some point.

How do you consume books these days? Paper, audio, ebook? And when and where do you read?

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Photo credit: A Fada cathedral 1932 via photopin (license)

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A Book Club Of One

I've been in a book group for 12 years. Crazy, huh?

I first joined when I was looking for new friends in London -- well any friends, really. There are three of us original members left and I have made so many wonderful friends through this group over the years. I look forward every month to our meetings.

It's also been a great way to read books I never might never have read otherwise. Because I do love to read. And I go through phases, but most of the time, I do really make an effort to finish book club books. Because I find I gain more through reading books I wouldn't normally read and actually finishing them.

When it comes to my reading habits, in addition to book club books, I also -- literally -- tear through a lot of what I call "Mind, Body & Scroll" books. These would include non-fiction books about mental well-being, self-help, meditation, etc. (you can find my library of these recommended reads here). I never have a problem reading these books. They are like my comfort food.

But I think I keep up with these two categories to the detriment of a long list of fiction books that I really would like to be reading. I suppose I feel like that kind of reading is a luxury. Which is insane. What exactly am I waiting for?

Therefore, I have decided to make a curated list of 10 fiction books to read in 2016 (the list is at the bottom of this post).

How do you make sure that you read what you want to read? Or is this just a problem I have?

Also, lovely readers, what do you think about the new Mind, Body & Scroll look? Thanks to my fabulous designer Cynthia Wheeler. In my opinion, she has nailed it. Make sure to check out the amazing London skyline she designed for the blog footer.

I've also recently joined Instagram and although I'm just a rookie and have only posted three photos thus far (quality, not quantity?), if you want to follow me, the link is at the top the page along with my facebook and twitter links.

Ten fiction books I will be reading in 2016:

1. The World According to Garp by John Irving

2. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

3. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

4. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

5. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

6. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

7. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

8. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

9. Home by Marilynne Robinson

10. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

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A Bad First Draft

First of all, Happy 2016! I hope all of you, my lovely readers, have a great start to the year and much happiness ahead.

Second, I thought I would update you on how the book writing is going. 

I've read the first draft, and let's me just put it out there: it was not good. And this isn't some sort of coy false modesty. Thing is, I tried to write a memoir of my first year (or so) as an American expat living in London and I really got in the way of it. I was clearly too chicken to really dive into the story, so I filled a lot of the pages with copious nonsense about my observations of expat life in the U.K. or stories from my childhood which were only tangentially related to the main narrative. Some parts of it even read like really long blog posts. It was disjointed and weird and I'm so glad that no one else is going to ever ever read that draft. 

The morning after I read it, I told the Hub, "It's fine, I'm not upset, I knew the structure was a little bit of a cop out and that I'd need to substantially re-work it."

But by the afternoon I had burst into tears.

Because of course, on some level, I had hoped that it would be brilliant. That I wouldn't really need to do much more work on it at this stage and could just hand it over to an editor. 

Unfortunately, I've read too much of other people's work and my own to know when something is good and when it isn't. 

Fortunately, I have figured out how I will attempt to fix it with draft #2. I've been wanting to write a non-fiction more self-help type book anyway, and will be using my drive to write something with a memoir feel for that (stay tuned). In the meantime, I'm going to lightly disguise my expat experience in a first-person fiction format. My first draft has at least given me the narrative structure for that.  

So I wrote one draft in 2015 and now need to carve it up into two books in 2016! 

At least I have something to keep me busy. As if that's the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. 

Photo credit: Nerdy way to sort books via photopin (license)

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The First Hurdle

I have just finished writing the first draft of my first-ever completed book. It happened this morning and although this is super exciting, I am keeping my feet on the ground and know this is only the first hurdle.

Since writing is part of the way I earn a living, I know that the satisfaction of finishing a first draft never lasts longs. Because as soon as you, or someone else reads it, the structural flaws and missing facts and holes in the story are immediately as clear as day, right before your eyes.

"I'm not sure what you're trying to say," someone will say to you -- only the worst words that a writer of any sort can hear.

But that's the trick, the challenge and the goal. To figure out what you want to say, but then how to say it. It's just not easy, my friends. It is definitely not easy.

I will let my precious draft rest for a week or so, first to enjoy this feeling for a while, and second to give me a little distance after writing that last sentence.

And then the real work will begin.

My goal is to get the second draft finished by Christmas. The plan is to do a first edit myself and hire a professional editor for the structural edit. I spoke to the Hub about it and he said -- and I couldn't agree more -- that I couldn't trust anyone I know to tell me what they really think: himself included. I've been reading lots about publishing and self-publishing and this jibes with the advice out there as well from published authors.

It's funny that it's the beginning of November, and this whole book project really got off the ground two Novembers ago when I participated in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I never finished that novel, but I got stuck in (writing about 30,000 words) and it helped me to focus on what I really wanted to write: a memoir of my first year or so living in London.

So there are two things I'd like to say to any inspiring writers out there:

First, writing a first draft it's not an easy process, but it is doable. There were so many moments where I questioned what I was doing and felt that everything I was writing was crap, but I just keep my butt in the chair day after day, pushing through -- a good cup of coffee helped too.

And second, if you think that you would like to write a book someday, but are no where near ready, I think blogging really helped me to ramp up to where I am now. It took five years, but hey, that's not that long in the scheme of things. And I've clearly enjoyed the journey!

Photo credit: IMG_0006.JPG via photopin (license)

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Book Review -- Joy, Inc.: How We Built A Workplace People Love

Most of my programming knowledge is constrained to my days of learning Basic on Apple machines and writing choose-your-own-adventure stories. But I do use software and have been a "client" of programmers in the past, so I was not lost in the programming references made by Richard Sheridan, cofounder and CEO, Menlo Innovations, in his book Joy, Inc: How We Built a Workplace People Love. Sheridan is also remarkably good at keeping his descriptions of the actual work programmers do completely understandable for the "stupid user."

The fascinating part of this book is how Sheridan took a business model that wasn't working, completely shut it down and built it back up in a way that worked for his team and allowed them to focus on the joy of working, instead of all the compromises most employees need to make to get to the part of the job that they love.

After digesting the book, I've tried to figure out what it is that's at the crux of how he created this environment for joy. I think that's it's by using true teamwork to get rid of fear. In other words, entirely eliminating competition and creating an organization that truly works together for one goal.

How does he do it in practice? He uses a concept he calls "pairing", meaning that absolutely no work -- I'm not kidding -- is done on an individual basis. Every programmer works in a team, on one computer, and the teams are shuffled around on a constant basis, so no one becomes a "tower of knowledge." The advantage of working this way is better problem solving and also a flexible work force -- everyone can cover for each other, meaning people can take holiday whenever they want.

Another concept that plays a strong role in his company's philosophy is failing early. Making mistakes fast. Something else that you can only happen once you get rid of fear. 

There is much more to it of course, and I did struggle to see how the work that I do could be structured in a similar way, but it's an interesting concept and could have applications for all groups of people trying to accomplish something.

Transforming the way people -- and organizations -- work isn't easy. The resistance to change is a powerful force. I know lots of people whose companies went to hot desking (having no specific assigned workspace) and it caused significant distress -- I can only imagine how people would feel about having to share a computer at first.

But it clearly works for Menlo Innovations -- more than works. I think what I got most out of this read is that it's important to think about the way to structure work in general to accomplish your goals and not be afraid to completely tear down something that isn't working. And this is always to meet the higher goal of joy. In order do the meaningful work that you love, you have to come up with solutions that give you that space. You can't necessarily get rid of the annoying bits, but how can you structure your work so you have time to focus on the part of it that you enjoy?

I don't have all the answers yet, but at least knowing that someone else has managed it makes me think it's at least possible.

For more recommendations and links to all my book reviews, check out my resources page.

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Book Review -- Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Won't Stop Talking

I tend to like people, and socializing, so I thought this meant I was an extrovert. In fact, on the Myers-Briggs personality test, I typically tip into the "E" category by slightly over 50% (I'm an ENFJ).

So I was surprised to learn from Susan Cain's book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Won't Stop Talking, that, according to her defintion, I am most likely an introvert who has learned how to appear extroverted in certain situations.

In fact, extroversion and introversion have nothing to do with whether or not you like people or socializing, according to Cain's analysis of the research. Instead, it is defined as the level of outside stimulation that you need to function well. Extroverts need new stimuli, like meeting lots of new people, are often thrill seeking, tackle work assignments quickly, make fast decisions and are comfortable multi-tasking. Introverts, on the other hand, prefer to work slowly and deliberately, listen more than they talk, feel they express themselves better in writing than in conversation, and typically dislike conflict.

I was amazed to find myself ticking nearly all the boxes on the list to put myself squarely in the category of introvert.

The Hub hates quizzes and definitions like these. He says there's no point in categorizing people as we're all too complex for that. I agree to some extent -- does it matter that I might be an extrovert by one definition and an introvert by another? And which definition is "right" anyway?

I will say though that reading Cain's book has helped me to understand a bit more about myself, particularly when it comes to a few things that were troubling me. For example, I do love socializing and going to parties, but I also find them incredibly exhausting and need time to "recover" afterwards. If faced with a week where there are numerous social events, particularly on consecutive nights, I don't cope well at all (just ask the Hub about how high the crankiness levels can get). But needing time alone to recharge, according to Quiet, is just par for the course for an introvert. This made me realize that being protective over my time alone and not allowing myself to be over scheduled was not a weird thing (as I have always thought), but something I actually need to do.

I find it is relevant to my work as well, and probably why I found being a journalist so draining, as it involved constant interaction with others. Although I have to participate in a lot of meetings at my current job, including external ones, and speak at conferences, I have always found myself needing to limit these events or group them together (I tend to try to schedule meetings in the afternoon so I have an uninterrupted morning to do research and writing). This is also not surprising for an introvert. Another mystery solved.

Whether or not you are an introvert or an extrovert, this book is enlightening. I am not naive enough to think that people do fit completely into one box or another, but I will say that this book gave me a much better understanding of human nature and why it is very important to "know thyself". And it gave me a justification for the fact that every weekend I try to kick the Hub out of the house (if for only a few hours!).

Related Posts:

• Book Review: Small Move, Big Change
• Book Review: Drop Dead Healthy

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Do You Like... Stuff?

Extra credit if you get the title of this post. (Leave a comment if you know the reference.)

When we're kids we pursue what we like. We read books that interest us, create games with friends, and just generally fill our days with what suits us. For me, this meant becoming obsessed with an electronic typewriter my mom brought home from work. I actually taught myself to type. And then I wrote stories on it. I also did things like try to learn to play the piano on a small toy one (my parents later conceded with proper lessons and a real piano). I was a weirdly prolific diarist and letter writer and I would create "magazines" by cutting out pictures from catalogues and magazines. I also rode my bike and climbed on jungle gyms - like a more normal kid - but there was usually a narrative involved in these activities too.

But then we grow up. I remember the conscious decision I took when leaving for college to stop keeping a journal. I wanted to "experience" things and not just reflect on them. And I took some classes that I wasn't that interested in to push myself and branch out. And there have been many times in my career where I've focused on what I think I should be doing instead of what I wanted to be doing. Not that these things are bad -- in fact, they must be a necessary growth phase.

There's a school of thought, however, about focusing on what inspires us. From Leo Baubauta's no goals philosophy to Steve Job's explanation that a caligraphy class taken in college inpired the fonts on the original mac computer, the idea is that we can't always see where our interests will get us. It's the process that gives us the joy along the way and we can often only connect the dots in hindsight anyway.

So I've been paying attention recently to what "stuff" interests me. I suppose you could say this blog is part of the process. I was almost ready to ditch it a while back. Not feeling like I had that much more to say on the physio stuff (since I'm so much better these days) and feeling a bit stuck in general. And then I thought, well, why can't I just use it to write about what interests me right now, no matter what it is? If people want to read it, grand, and if not, at least I'm still exercising my writing muscle.

In addition to reading what I like, writing about what interests me and even considering taking up the piano again, I've also begun to notice some new things. Here are a few that have taken me a bit by surprise:

Flowers.
The hub and I have become addicted to the luxury of having fresh cut flowers in our flat. There's an amazing flower stall outside of the exit of the Clapham Junction station that we both have to pass on our way home. And we often talk about the flowers we see there and have experimented with buying different combinations. I've been also trying to learn the names of what we're buying as I know absolutely nothing about flowers. Here's a photo of one of my favorites. We call them the brain flowers. And in fact, that's almost what they are called, often referred to as the brain celosia or celosia cockscomb, because they also bear a little resemblance to a rooster's comb.

The way people used to live.
When we went on vacation to Ireland last autumn (and also learned something about Halloween), we visited this amazing house in Killarney, called Muckross House, which is a 19th century Victorian mansion. The hub was not so keen to take the tour (he hates tours) but I was really intrigued, so he conceded. And I was absolutely fascinated by the period decoration of the main rooms in the house and the information we learned about the occupants and how the house itself worked -- all the bells that rang down to the servants in the basement were still there. For some reason, I love the minutiae of everyday life in the past. What did people eat? Where did they sleep? The more boring and routine, the better.

Biography.
But I'm also interested in people's stories. In fact, the owners of Muckross House nearly bankrupted themselves preparing for Queen Victoria's visit in 1861. That's why biography has been a genre I've discovered in my 30s and haven't turned back (although in retrospect I did like biography as a kid, even though it was usually a school assignment to read it). The first recent biography I read was Josephine: The Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart about Napoleon's wife. I only read it because I was taking a non-fiction writing class and my teacher was the author. But it gave me the bug. I think it's the combination of everyday life combined with the fact that truth really can be stranger than fiction. And it also reminds me that no matter how much our lives change with technology and indoor plumbing, they always stay the same. I believe that what motivates, entertains and strikes fear in our hearts is a constant, no matter in what century you live on this earth.

So, what "stuff" have you discovered you like recently? Are you paying attention?

Related Posts:

• Pleasure: Seeking It From Within
• Enough: Limits Can Be Expansive
• Know Thyself, Know Thy Work

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Introducing: The Resource Page

I mention a lot of books in my blog postings and one of my friends suggested she'd like to be able to see them all in one place. As a bit of a self-help maven, I've read through many of the duds as well as the good ones and I think these are the best of the best.

So... introducing the Resources page!

I've arranged the books by category: General Well-Being, The Brain & Meditation, Food & Body Image and Writing. If you have a great self-help book you've read, please email me to tell me about it. I'm always looking for new ones and it may just end up on this list.

Happy reading.

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Tinker Tailor Soldier - Why?

I've now mentioned in two other posts that John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is making me angry. We're reading it in my book club and my reaction to it has been strong. I can usually read my book club book in enough time to read an additional book between meetings, but this month I am struggling with finishing it.

So why is this interesting, or relevant? And why should you care?

My experience with Tinker Tailor has taught me two things that I thought I'd share: first, that every thing you are upset about now is actually something that has already happened to you, and second, that I am afraid of things that are difficult, which is not a good thing.

Now, one of the 'charming' aspects of Tinker Tailor is that it is a spy novel, and as the reader, you are as much in the dark as the main protagonist, who is recruited to root out a high-level mole of thirty years standing. I have not found being in the dark charming.

It has clearly rustled out some insecurity I'm storing in the depths of my soul (dramatic much?) about not being able to comprehend literature on a high level, unlike some friends of mine who studied literature at university (or college, for the Americans). Despite being an English literature whiz in high school, I was not allowed to study such a subject during my higher education.

Before handing over the tuition money, my Dad specified that I would have to find a career-oriented topic to study that wouldn't leave me jobless and directionless post-graduation. So I ended up studying applied economics and working for the college paper, in order to make myself employable as a financial journalist. I figured such a path was the best chance of making me not just a journalist, but a highly employable one. And it was certainly not a bad strategy. I've had an interesting career – one that gave me a very decent salary in Manhattan at the young age of 22 and then eventually paved the way for me to move overseas.

Dad's strategy got me thinking about how to make myself employable, which was a good thing, but it doesn't mean I'm not still a little sad that I wasn't able to spend my college days reading and analyzing literature and having lively debates with other like-minded people (like in the movies), instead of grinding my way through stats classes and business law. I also know many financial journalists who majored in English, so who's to say I couldn't have had the same path?

When I read a book 16 years after I filled in those college application forms and feel like crying because I don't understand it, could it be that disappointed 18 year-old rising to the surface?

So that's point one.

Second point is that the panic I feel at not being able to understand a complex spy story on first read and letting said 18-year-old take over, is clearly not a good thing when it comes to continuing to develop my skills as a writer (a big chunk of which involves reading).

When things get tough, fearful backing away only limits you. Yes, I know it's just one book, but I try to read all sorts of books -- not just my favorite types. Perfectionists (including me) will often turn back at the first hurdle because they are deathly afraid of failing, and so it's easier not to try.

So faced with my own perfectionism and my discomfort at reading a book which is not entirely clear to me from the get go, I decided that as much as I hated it, learning this lesson was important. When I'm faced with a task that seems tough, I sometimes shy away. But when I actually try, I always learn something. So why can't the process be less traumatic, why can't I be OK with not understanding everything right away? Learning requires a little bit of discomfort, but the rewards in the end are well worth it.

And so I plow ahead with Tinker Tailor. I am no longer actively worrying about understanding everything, but trying to enjoy and absorb. And maybe by the end I'll get it a little more. But more importantly, I'll have increased my tolerance to discomfort and confusion and realized it's not all as bad as it seems.

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• Good Addictions?
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• What Next? Start Small

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Book Review: Poser – My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

It's very clever. A book about yoga, that's not really about yoga. Claire Dederer writes a memoir told through 23 yoga postures – an incredibly savvy marketing technique because everyone is interested in yoga these days. And I'm glad the marketing ensnared me, anyway, as I probably wouldn't have picked up a memoir about motherhood in Seattle in the 1990s.

Dederer tells the story of being a young mother, trying to do everything 'right' and how yoga helped her to realize that life is more about being real and joyful than being 'good'. She weaves in her own mother's story – and that of her mother's contemporaries – a group of women who in the 1970s decided they had been sold a bum deal with the whole marriage and motherhood thing, and fled their husbands in a sort of mass migration.

I found it striking that every generation has its backlash and new ideal. For Dederer and her contemporaries, being a good mother and staying married became the ultimate antidote to what they perceived as their own mothers' familial betrayal. And it involved a heck of a lot of cloth diapers and wooden toys from Europe. Only a decade or so later and I think there are a lot of women who will identify with this. Although I'm not a mother, I have plenty of friends who are and I observe their struggle to do things 'right' – stories of women in their area who have a strict 'schedule' for their babies and can't get together at certain times because they are beholden to it. There's also a lot of guilt going around about breast feeding – or more accurately when there's a lack of it.

Dederer is brutally honest – the main component, I believe, of a great memoir. And she addresses some of the key questions of our time: what defines family and what really matters in life. I found the perspective she comes to in the end about her marriage and her husband's depression enlightening as well (mainly it's OK and doesn't need to be 'fixed'). Which made me think that maybe my contemporaries' main obsession – of trying to be 'perfect' – is not far removed from Dederer's own age group's obsession of being 'good'. Perfection these days is de rigueur, whether it refers to looks, size, relationships or real estate.

There's a lot of talk of yoga thrown in, which was quite interesting from my perspective as I only practice one kind and am keen to learn more about yoga in general. I was surprised at the depth of this memoir as from the outside cover one would be forgiven for thinking it's about yoga, and maybe shopping or wine (some sort of melange of Sex and the City and triangle pose), which certainly doesn't do the book justice. But that's marketing for you. And to be fair, using yoga to structure the book does work well. After all, you can write a great book, but you still have to get people to read it.

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