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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Blog #85: Read any good books lately?

 I'm trying to spend some time reading more for pleasure now that I don't have classes bogging me down with stuff I don't feel like reading. Of course, one of the books I'm reading right now actually IS for my upcoming weekend intensive, but it is one that I would have gotten to on my own anyway because I'm interested in it. I'm trying to get a good balance of fiction/nonfiction happy/sad going at once so that I'm not overwhelmed by any one genre/mood. Reading also keeps me sharp for my internship in the absence of classes, which is nice. I typically can read several nonfiction/self improvement or research type books at one time but only one fiction book at a time lest I get my stories jumbled. So, my reading docket usually has 3 or 4 books listed with only one of them at the most being a novel.

CURRENTLY reading:
1. Authentic Happiness - Martin Seligman - I'm reading this one for my upcoming class on Positive Psychology but it has been on my "to read" list for awhile anyway. Very interesting stuff thus far. Martin Seligman is big into the positive/preventative part of psychology which revolves around building and reinforcing adaptive and positive traits and perspectives intentionally before any disorder is diagnosed and treatment required. So far, to me, it's the equivalent of medical doctors preaching a daily multivitamin, healthy diet, exercise, etc. Believe it or not, this approach to self care and self fulfillment as a means of dissuading potential development of disorders is relatively new, though one might think it common sense. More on that when I'm through with the class.
2.Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - I already told you about this one. I'm loving getting lost in the story so far. This is serving as my current fiction fixation.
3. Beautiful You, A daily guide to Radical Self Acceptance - Rosie Molinary - I need to get back on track with this one. It seemed a little daunting and so I pushed it aside, but the activities and journal questions could be really meaningful if I took them seriously.
4.The Happiness Project - Gretchen Rubin - The author basically looked at a ton of philosophies and research regarding the happiest people and attempted to make changes to her life in a one year span to test their effectiveness on her own situation. It's another positive psychology kind of thing but without the shiny empirical data in Authentic Happiness and more anecdotal but I am looking forward to spending some more time reading it.

On my TO READ list:
- Malcolm Gladwell's stuff
- Flourish, by Martin Seligman (more positive psychology)
- Heaven is For Real, by Todd Burpo
- Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
- REREAD The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
- The Hunger Games? Maybe.
- Friday Night Lights the book. Who wrote that? Yes, I know how Google works. I'm just lazy.
- Chelsea Handler's stuff
- Mindy Kaling has a book coming out in November. Very excited for that!
HAVE READ recently & would recommend:
- When Children Grieve, by John W James & Russell Friedman with Dr. Leslie Landon Matthews
- This Thing Called Grief, by Thomas M. Ellis
- The Book Thief, by Markus Zusack
- Any of Wally Lamb's stuff. I need to REREAD.
- Bossypants, by Tina Fey (WONDERFUL)
- This is a Book - Demetri Martin (weirdly fantastic.)
- Love Wins, Rob Bell. Whether I believe/agree with him or not is irrelevant. The beauty of this book lies in challenging currently held beliefs and asking hard questions inspiring discussion of difficult topics.

There's certainly much more in every category I'm sure, because as many people would know I get excited about pretty much everything pretty easily. Do you have any recommendations for me?  (for more things book and otherwise that inspire me, check me out on pinterest.)

3 comments:

  1. Hunger Games are a MAYBE?! Ummm...they are a MUST!!

    I went to a lecture by Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project)...loved her!

    I haven't read it yet (though I've heard great things about it), but Erasing Hell by Francis Chan may be a really good follow up to Love Wins. :)

    I'm mostly a fiction reader. Two books I've read recently that really I liked and would recommend are The Help and Room.

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  2. yay! Thanks for the suggestions Ash! I love having myself a good reading list!

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  3. Our book club just started reading Kindred by Octavia Butler and I haven't finished it yet, but I recommend it already!! :)

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