The Book Jam

Confession time: Neither of the Book Jam’s Lisas usually reads self-help books, or makes a big deal out of New Year’s Resolutions. Yes, we think about them and make promises to do better, but lists and perfectly executed plans are not our norm.  However, when we started the Book Jam we did vow to try to read books that we would not normally pick up on our own in order to reach as many readers as possible.  And, as we thought about posts for the 2014, and specifically a New Year’s themed post, we picked up a few books from a genre we rarely visit (or at least not since we quit dating) — the self-help genre.  Honestly, they helped.  How?  Well, both caused us to think a bit differently about conflicts and concerns in our life, and they provided a bit of comfort in that we could relate to aspects of each of our chosen author’s lives. Here are our two recommendations.

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, PhD and LMSW (2010) – We first heard of Ms. Brown because of a TED talk.  Then she seemed to be everywhere – on multiple NPR interviews, in magazines, books in friends’ homes.  So we picked up this book of hers and read.  In it, she takes her research studying difficult emotions such as shame, fear, vulnerability from her career at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, and adds insights from her own “mid-life unraveling”. (This is her term for the more typically named mid-life crisis.)  She defines the unraveling as a time when you are “challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and embrace who you are“.  Her conclusions from this research and work?  Well, we would sum it as follows — that courage, compassion and connection are gifts that only work when exercised.  In this book, she shows both how this exercise is possible, and how it changes those who practice these gifts.

The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist (2010) – A great entry into thinking about how you interact with money and how it interacts with your life. And, since money is everywhere and determines so many things in one’s life — job, food purchases, type of home, type of neighborhood one’s home is in — thinking about how you approach and relate to money seems important.  Using anecdotes from her work as a fundraiser for large non-profit organizations and her personal life, she shows how one’s thoughts about money filter one’s interactions with the world.  Groundbreaking?  Probably not, but we found it useful as she caused us to think about money — a topic we honestly find uncomfortable discussing during out best moments.  She also has us thinking about our own work and how we value it. Stay tuned for any ways this thinking affects our future reading choices.

Disclosure: We did not read these books straight through, but instead picked them up a bit at a time over the past few months.  For us, this felt like the right way to approach these authors.  We mention this only to give you “permission” to dabble, rather than immerse yourself in self-help genre, in case you too usually avoid this genre.  And, we promise our next post will delve into the power of fiction.