I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

So, here’s a typical Thursday in my life right now:

//

6:41 am
My internal body clock wakes me up. I roll over, check the time on my phone, and then snuggle up to Graham while I wait for the alarm to go off.

7:00 am
The West Wing theme song starts playing from my phone – time to get up. I roll out of bed, leaving Graham in a blissful slumber.

7:05 am
I turn the coffee maker on, and then head to the bathroom to shower. We have a waterproof shower speaker, and I always enjoy listening to an audiobook while I shower and get ready in the morning. This morning it’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I’m listening to for the 6th or 7th time. (Harry has just arrived at Number 12 Grimmauld Place and is awaiting his underage magic hearing at the Ministry of Magic.) I shower, brush my teeth, wash my face, apply SPF 30 facial lotion, fix my hair into a ponytail, and put on eyeliner, eyeshadow, and foundation.

7:25 am
I don’t start work until 10am, but I love having some down time to myself in the morning. I loaf about on the couch in my bathrobe, and I use my free time to read or work on my blog. This morning I’m plugging away through the second volume of Proust, Within a Budding Grove. I listen to the audiobook while I follow along in my vintage Random House copy. I also drink my first cup of coffee of the day, and eat a Fage yogurt with honey.

8:45 am
I pull my green lotus patterned meditation cushion out of the closet, and meditate for 10 minutes. Then I get dressed and pack my backpack.

9:10 am
I kiss Graham goodbye and leave for work. The walk takes about 35 minutes, and I love being able to start my day with a nice walk outside. Today I listen to an episode of the NPR Politics podcast.

I usually walk a slightly different route every day, but there is a particular street I always try to walk down because this friendly dog is usually out in the morning, just chilling. I like to say hello.

9:51 am
I arrive at my desk at work and start getting settled in. I usually go down to the main kitchen and grab more coffee and second breakfast. We have a whole assortment of cereal, yogurt, fruit, and bagels, and I usually opt for Gorilla Munch cereal.

10:00 am
Back at my desk, I watch our CEO’s weekly office hours Q&A on the webcast. It’s happening live upstairs, but I usually opt to tune in from my desk so I can relax and have breakfast while I watch. (And catch up on emails.)

11:00 am
The webcast is over, so now I start my work for the day. I’m writing a lot of help content this week, so I put some good music on Spotify through my headphones and get to work.

12:30 pm
It’s Eatsy time! We have an incredible catered lunch program twice a week, and it’s time to go get in line.

Today’s lunch is Swedish meatballs, orzo, and a green salad. It’s delicious, and I check in at my desk before eating lunch with a few colleagues in the lounge area of our suite.

1:00 pm
If I have time, I like to step out and get a bit of fresh air after lunch. Brooklyn Bridge park is one block from our office, and it feels glorious to get a bit of sunshine and take in the view. I wander a bit and snapchat photos of dogs to Graham.

2:00 pm
This afternoon I’m working a first draft of an article, and when I need to focus on writing I like to sit down in the Wu Tang Clams lounge (all our conference rooms are band names mashed up with food) – it’s dark and quiet, and I find it very easy to focus there.

3:30 pm
I have a meeting to touch base with a co-worker I’m working closely with on a project, and we meet in the kitchenette on the 4th floor. I grab my last mug of coffee for the day.

4:30 pm
For the rest of the work day I head back to my desk and finish up work, read and answer more emails, and chat about projects with my co-workers. I usually have a mug of peppermint tea.

6:00 pm
I leave work, listing to an episode of Fresh Air while I walk.

6:20 pm
I meet Graham at the gym, and we put in a modest 30 minutes on the treadmill.

7:15 pm
Graham and I get back home and make tacos for dinner. We eat dinner while watching last night’s Daily Show. (The nice thing about a small apartment is you can sit at the dining room table and still be only 6 feet from the TV.)

8:00 pm
We cuddle up on the couch. Some nights we watch a show together, and some nights we read or talk or play Mario Kart. Tonight we watch an episode of the BBC Planet Earth series, and then I read for a while.

9:45 pm
I start getting ready for bed. Always the same steps: wash face, brush teeth, floss, lotion face, use mouthwash.

10:00 pm
We read in bed: Graham reading Reddit on his phone, me reading a paperback copy of Mrs. Bridge.

10:30 pm
I’m usually passed out by now, most often with the book I’m reading either plopped down over my face, or cuddled up in my arms. Graham removes the book, tucks me in, and turns off the light.

Smarter Faster Better is divided into eight sections: Motivation, Teams, Focus, Goal Setting, Managing Others, Decision Making, Innovation, and Absorbing Data. Most, if not all, of the subjects can be applied as easily to our personal lives as to our lives at work.

It contains a wide variety of examples and case studies: research conducted by data scientists at Google, software used by FBI agents, the restructuring of the Marine Corps’ boot camp program, how the team working on Frozen at Disney overcame creative roadblocks, the collaboration behind the scenes at Saturday Night Live, and more.

“Productivity, put simply, is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort. It’s a process of learning how to succeed with less stress and struggle. It’s about getting things done without sacrificing everything we care about along the way.”

Just like The Power of Habit, the examples and lessons in Smarter Faster Better are pretty high level. These are not books that get into the weeds with specific ways to apply the concepts directly to our lives. These are books for people interested in sociology and psychology, who want to mull over big ideas and figure out how the lessons and examples can be applied personally. I really enjoyed it

Curious about Smarter Faster Better? Here are a few of Charles Duhigg’s recent online pieces that feature topics from the book:

• What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team [NY Times Magazine]
• The Most Effective Way to Create a To-Do List [Etsy Seller Handbook]

//

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FTC disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

A House of My Own is a collection of Sandra Cisneros’s non-fiction writing, spanning across a variety of years, mediums, and subjects. Some were published as introductions to her novels, or the work of others. Some were published in journals, newspapers, or magazines. Some were given as lectures. They cover so many topics, but there’s a theme threading its way through the work: one of a writer shaping her life and career through experiences lived richly, and of the necessity of having a home to herself: a shelter and sanctuary, a “refuge as spiritual as a monastery.” We learn more about her childhood – the youngest of seven children (and the only daughter) growing up in a poor family. It’s not a surprise that she longed for independence and a place to call her own. She needed the yin & yang balance of a vibrant, full life and a quiet place to nourish her soul and explore the outer world in her writing. This collection captures that balance and lets us live a while in that creatively inspired world.

I loved so many of the pieces in this collection, but here are three of my favorites.

1. Her moving speech for an International Women’s Day rally in 1993 about her friend Jasna, a woman missing in Sarajevo during the Yugoslav war. It’s filled with descriptions of her friend’s life in Sarajevo and a desperate plea for help from a person whose only weapon is her pen.

“A woman is there. She’s my friend, take my word for it. That city, those streets, those houses. Where I washed rugs and scrubbed floors and gave away puppies and had coffee in the open cafés on Titograd Street. Look, what I’m trying to say is my friend is missing. This is a city where cherry trees blossomed the summer I was there, if you go to the American library on the banks of the Miljacka River, there is a copy of T. S. Eliot’s poems with one page stained with a cherry that fell from a tree while I was reading it, I’ll show you the page. I picked walnuts for the cake you made in a summer that was ripe and abundant with fruit and peace and hope, the upcoming Olympics on the horizon. […]

I demand you go right in there. I demand you give me a sword mightier than this useless pen of mine. I demand you arrive in Sarajevo. I’ll take you to ulica Gorica, I’m afraid, but I’ll take you. Spirits of all you deceased relatives and friends, my ancestors, my compatriots, fellow human beings, I demand, I ask, I beg you. 

In the name of civilization. In the name of humanity. In the name of compassion. In the name of respectability. In the name of mankind. Bring that woman out of there.” 

2. Her eloquent response to a women who wants to ban The House on Mango Street from school libraries:

“I trust that my books will only take flight in the minds of those who need these stories. Those too young or not needing my particular dose of medicine will be bored, and that’s how it works best, in my opinion. 

May you find the right books to fall in love with and be transformed by, and may those books that don’t meet your needs be placed gently back on the bookshelf. I wish you well in your journey of self-discovery.”

3. The way she writes about love and loss, in particular this heartfelt passage about losing her father:

“Whenever anyone discusses death they talk about the inevitable loss, but no one ever mentions the inevitable gain. How when you lose a loved one, you suddenly have a spirit ally, an energy on the other side that is with you always, that is with you just by calling their name. I know my father watches over me in a much more thorough way than he ever could when he was alive. When he was living, I had to telephone long distance to check up on how he was doing, and if he wasn’t watching one of his endless telenovelas, he’d talk to me. Now I simply summon him in my thoughts. Papá. Instantly I feel his presence surround and calm me.” 

//

I listened to this one on audiobook – Sandra Cisneros narrates it herself, and she brings so much spirit and life into her written words. But I longed to meditate a little more on some of the pieces – the audiobook moved a little faster than I would have liked to experience the writing. I ended up also checking out a print copy from the library, so I could reflect back on some of my favorite sections. I’m glad I did because the print edition is filled with wonderful color photographs that helped to bring even more of her personality into the collection.

//

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Author photo by Alan Goldfarb. 

So when I saw that she has a new book out and that she wants to take us on a trip to Europe in the mid 20th century to meet the philosophers and writers at the forefront of Existentialism, I was standing at the door with my coat on and my bags packed (metaphorically speaking) before the galley hit my inbox.

Before setting out with Bakewell on this adventure, my knowledge of the Existentialists was very limited. I’d read The Stranger by Albert Camus. I was interested enough (in theory) about Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre that I’d visited their graves while I was in Paris, even though I’ve never read their work. But my knowledge of Existentialism was not very deep at all, and I relished the opportunity to dive into a new (to me) philosophy and history.

At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails tells the history of Existentialism through the writers and thinkers that shaped and evolved the movement: Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, Merleau-Ponty, and more; as well as the philosophers who came before them and helped to lay the groundwork: Heidegger, Husserl, Kierkegaard, etc. As the title suggests, the history is presented as if we’re at a café in Paris, sipping our coffee and wearing black turtlenecks as these great thinkers float in and out of the central story, each taking over the conversation for a while as the plot rotates around the historical progress of the movement.

Here are the two main reasons why this book is so interesting, and so fantastic:

1. You’ll be introduced (or re-introduced) to a variety of philosophers and interesting personalities. Some might feel like kindred spirits, expressing ideas that still feel true and right for our lives today. Others may have moments of interest contained within an overarching approach to life that we drastically take issue with (we’re looking at you, Heidegger). My copy is so filled with highlighting that I’m not going to attempt to include my favorites – I think it’s just something you have to dive into and discover which philosophical bits take flight in your mind.

2. One of the most impressive things about At The Existentialist Café is how it presents the evolution of existentialism in relation to world events happening in conjunction. The main story starts just after the first World War, an experience that shaped the thoughts and lives of everyone directly or indirectly impacted. We see how the both the ideas and questions these philosophers are grappling with — and their answers to them — are shaped over time by both World Wars and the rise of Communism and unrest in the 1950s and 60s. It’s absolutely fascinating to see the shifts and turns in their focus and ideas as they tackle the issues of the world around them.

“Sartre’s big question in the mid 1940s was: given that we are free, how can we use our freedom well in such challenging times? In his essay ‘The End of the War’, written just after Hiroshima and published in October 1945 — the same month as the lecture — he extorted his readers to decide what kind of world they wanted, and make it happen. From now on, he wrote, we must always take into account our knowledge that we can destroy ourselves at will, with all our history and perhaps life on earth itself. Nothing stops us but our own free choosing. If we want to survive, we have to decide to live.” 

Sarah Bakewell presents a lively, readable history of the existentialists, and I finished the book convinced that the questions central to their philosophy are just as relevant to our lives today.

“They asked big questions about what it means to live an authentic, fully human life, thrown into a world with many other humans also trying to live. They tackled questions about nuclear war, about how we occupy the environment, about violence, and about the difficulty of managing international relations in dangerous times. Many of them longed to change the world, and wondered what sacrifices we might or might not make for such an aim. Atheist existentialists asked how we can live meaningfully in the absence of God. They all wrote about anxiety and the experience of being overwhelmed by choice — a feeling that has become ever more intense in the relatively prosperous parts of the twenty-first-century world, even while real-world choices have shut down alarmingly for some of us. They worried about suffering, inequality and exploitation, and wondered whether anything could be done about those evils. As part of all these questions, they asked what individuals could do, and what they themselves had to offer. […]

Their philosophies remain of interest, not because they are right or wrong, but because they concern life, and because they take on the two biggest human questions: what are we? and what should we do?” 

Highly recommended for those who are interested in philosophy, and those who like to chew over big questions and ideas.

//

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FTC disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Books Read: 7

Previously Reviewed:

• The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin

FICTION

My fiction in February centered around non-American authors. I started with The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Algerian author Leïla Marouane. It sounded very promising: it was recommended by Ann Morgan in her TED talk on reading a book from every country in the world, and it’s a Europa Edition. But what started out as an intriguing story of a middle-aged Muslim living in France, escaping his mother’s house (and control) by renting a lavish apartment in a fashionable neighborhood in Paris turned into a sloppy narrative that kind of just petered out.

The other novel I read in February was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was already a big fan of her work: Americanah was the best novel I read in 2015. And Half of a Yellow Sun did not disappoint. It’s a soaring novel about a family’s life and survival during the Biafra war in the 1960s. Like Americanah, it’s a novel I think everyone should read, and it cemented Adichie as a literary powerhouse in my book. I need to read her short story collections next.

BUDDHIST NON-FICTION

If you read Yes Please by Amy Poehler, you may remember her gushing about the American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. The only book by Pema Chödrön that I had read was Fail Fail Again Fail Better: a small little book that includes a commencement speech on failure that she delivered, as well as a Q&A interview. I liked its tightly packed big message, but I felt my Buddhist literature reading efforts were lacking a full length book by Chödrön. So this month I read Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change. It’s stunning. She writes with so much heart and wisdom. My copy is covered in stars, underlining, and circles. Chödrön is now up there with Thích Nhất Hạnh as the Buddhist writers who I’ll return to again and again.

I also listened to the audiobook of Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now by Lama Surya Das. This one didn’t move me as much – I liked parts of it, but on the whole it fell a bit short for me. It’s not a book I’d recommend starting with for those new to reading about Buddhism.

MEMOIRS

My audiobooks in February centered around celebrity memoirs. Most of the time celebrity memoirs aren’t books that I’d normally pick up in print, but they usually make really good audiobooks. They can provide good balance when you’re reading heavier stuff in print. I listened to Rob Lowe’s second memoir (although I still need to read his first), Love Life. I’m a big Rob Lowe fan from his roles on The West Wing and Parks & Recreation, and his memoir is pretty great. He seems so down to earth, and deeply committed to his wife and kids. But he also recognizes that, as a celebrity, he gets to lead a pretty incredible life, and it’s fun to listen to some of his crazier stories. Love Life is a great mix of outlandish stories combined with reflections he shares with raw honesty: the loss he feels from his kids leaving home for college, and his path to sobriety.

The other memoir I listened to in February was Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. I didn’t really know much about Chelsea Handler before watching and enjoying her Netflix Series, Chelsea Does. I decided to give one of her books a go, and while I didn’t like it as much as her documentaries, it still provided a lot of laughs, and I’ll likely pick up another book of hers soon.

Books Purchased: 5

I couldn’t resist picking up two new Harper Perennial Olive editions when I visited The Spotty Dog in Hudson this month: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. I also bought Muriel Barbery’s new novel, The Life of Elves. Helen Macdonald’s By the Book feature in the NY Times Book Review made me decide I need to read Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. And, last but not least, I bought my own print copy of The Creative Tarot. After reading and loving it via a digital galley, I knew I needed my own copy for reference.

I’ve just started Charles Duhigg’s new book, Smarter Better Faster. It’s fantastic already, but I’ve realized I’m definitely craving a good novel — I’ve been reading & listening to a lot of non-fiction lately. I’m going to be selecting some novels off my shelves to dive into in March.

– Polysyllabic Spree: January 2016
– The Month: January 2016
– Book Blogger Appreciation Week: Kickoff & Intro
– BBAW: Interview with The Storyscape
– BBAW Day 3: Book Pushers
– The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin
– Making My First Quilt

We’ve had a few 50+ degree days in Brooklyn lately, and spring is definitely on the mind of every New Yorker (even though it’s back to below freezing temperatures this weekend). I’m hoping for a nice long spring — a generous amount of sunny, crisp days in the 50s and 60s before we dive into a long hot summer. I’m particular excited for the spring cherry blossoms in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We missed the peak bloom last year while we were in South America, and I’m looking forward to a lazy weekend afternoon laying in the shade while little pink petals fall from above.

Etsy spots of the month:

• I’m always on the lookout for stickers to put on my laptop (there’s limited real estate, so my standards are pretty high). I’ve just ordered these adorable whales.
• The ultimate in zen posters.
• My current necklace obsession.
• I’m loving still life prints lately, especially the simplicity of this yellow leaf.

This year was Graham’s time being in the States for a Superbowl Sunday, and we didn’t hold back on preparing our Superbowl feast. We didn’t care much about the football game, but our food spread game was pretty extraordinary.

Continuing my goal of making at least one new recipe a month, I made Swedish Meatballs in February. I used this recipe from the Food Network, meant to replicate Ikea’s. I think this recipe is way better than Ikea’s, and tastes even better when paired with a giant bowl of homemade mashed potatoes.

This month we watched Trumbo and Brooklyn, and started re-watching The IT Crowd. We also watched (and loved) all four episodes of Chelsea Does on Netflix.

I’ve just finished A House of My Own by Sandra Cisneros. It was wonderful, and I’ll be posting a review of it next week. Now I’m catching up on podcasts while I decide what audiobook to start next.

• The New York Times Magazine recently published their Work issue, and which includes nine fantastic articles about work related subjects: building a perfect team, work-life balance, “dream jobs,” and more. All nine articles are available to read online, and I highly recommend them.
• I love linked short stories, and Publisher’s Weekly just posted a list of author Amy Parker’s 10 favorites.

//

And that’s the month! Cheers to a wonderful March.

Until this past November, when she had the wonderful idea that we could make my first quilt together when I came home for Thanksgiving. One of my best friends is pregnant with her first child, and she thought that a baby quilt for Dara’s baby would be a perfect project. (She was right.)

The first step was to go to the store and select the fabrics to use. I am extremely particular about anything aesthetic or design related, so it took us a while to pick out what we wanted to use. To assemble fabric for a patchwork quilt you need to have a good mix of prints and colors, and you need a balance of bold designs that “pop” and designs that are little more subtle. I left very pleased with our selection.

Once home, we pre-washed all the fabric, and my mom taught me how to cut against the fabric grain on the corners to prevent it from raveling in the wash. Once it was all washed and ironed, I began to cut it all into 5 inch x 5 inch squares. This was my favorite part of the entire project — I loved the orderly cutting process, and seeing the blocks all stacked up.

After all the blocks are cut up, the next step is to lay out the quilt and decide where to place each block.

Once it’s all laid out the way you’d like it, there’s a very special way of stacking them all together so that the top comes out exactly as you’ve designed it. (Did I mention that my mom is a Pro quilter?)

Then, it’s time to sew! And sew and sew and sew!

(This part is an excellent time to listen to audiobooks.)

Sometimes you have to take a break and cuddle the dog.

Once the top is finished you feel like you’ve accomplished a great deal. And you have. But there is still so much more to do! You have to layer the top with the batting and the backing, and use a lot of safety pins to keep it all together.

At this point a quilter can choose to finish a quilt one of three ways: you can “tie it,” you can hand quilt it, or you can machine quilt it (yourself, or you can take it to a place that will machine quilt it for you). We tied it, which is best for beginners, and / or those who would like to finish their quilt within the current decade.

The last step is to cut the piping for the binding, and sew it all on. I found this part especially tedious.

But then – voila! A quilt! It’s finished! It feels so good to have made a quilt. It’s a big undertaking, but very rewarding.

The last step is to give it to your best friend and then wait patiently for her baby boy to arrive (due April 29th!), so he can be wrapped up in it!

//

If there’s anyone in your life who knows how to make wonderful things: quilts, chairs, screen prints, birdhouses — anything and everything, I encourage you to ask them to share their expertise with you, and help you make something. It’s a great way to spend quality time together, and it’s a lot of fun to learn something new.

You can take the tarot as seriously (or not) as you’d like. It can be a vehicle for storytelling. It can be fun. If you don’t “believe” in it, that’s fine. If you do believe in it, that’s fine too. In The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide to an Inspired Life, Jessa Crispin provides a well rounded guide that can serve as both an introduction to tarot for beginners and skeptics, or a fresh approach and interpretation for tarot veterans.

As Crispin puts it:

“It is not necessarily about telling the future. It is about retelling the present.”

“We give things meaning by paying attention to them, and so moving your attention from one thing to another can absolutely change your future. Exactly who or what is doing the work here — whether fate is choosing the card, or your unconscious, or random chance — doesn’t matter as much as the act of  seeing, sensing, and paying attention.” 

I think the tarot is a fun (and sometimes incredibly useful) way of looking at things in a new light. You can think of it as pulling thought prompts that contain symbols and meanings, and using them as a base for exploring your thoughts and feelings from an angle you might not have thought of on your own.

Crispin begins by walking through an introduction to the tarot: its history, the artists who have created some of the most commonly used decks, and her own history with the tarot and how she began to use it with a creative lens. Why is creativity a good topic for the tarot?

“Nothing kills creativity faster than anxiety: worrying if you’re doing things “right,” worrying that no one else is going to like when you’re doing, panicking about how it’s all going to turn out.

Almost every time, the solution is listening to and honoring your intuitive sense of not what you think you need but what your project needs to come to fruition. Maybe that is the greatest thing the cards can do for us: quiet down our worried thoughts and our expectations for how it’s “supposed” to go and help us get back in touch with our imagination.”

She then walks through each of the cards in the deck. She begins with a short introduction to the imagery and the traditional definition of the card. Then she she layers in the creative approach to each card:

“I’ve taken stories, from biographies, from my clients, from the worlds of film and literature and music, of how artists have dealt with problems in their process. How musicians battled their record companies for the right to record their music their way. Or how a writer overcame losing everything he’d ever written when his wife left their suitcase on a train. Or how a composer dealt with the humiliation of a riot at his opera’s premiere.”

“These stories should also give the reader wider meaning to the cards, to show how they can work in the real world. How people respond to these quandaries can give you ideas on how you might respond to your own. And they help relate the cards more directly to the artistic experience.”

And finally, she lists recommended materials to further explore each card. Movies, books, music, artwork, poems, etc. I love this idea, and I think each reader can begin adding to these lists with examples they’ve encountered that bring a deeper personal meaning to each card. Each card represents an archetype, and once you’re familiar with the cards you can start to identify them everywhere. For example, Auntie Mame is the perfect representation of the Nine of Cups. “The self-contained happiness and pleasure of that card is shown in the world-traveling, party-throwing, joyful, and wise spinster aunt.”

I bought myself a Rider deck (I love Pamela Colman Smith’s artwork), and Jessa Crispin is quick to debunk the idea that your first deck needs to be a gift. (“It is absolutely ok for you to buy your first tarot deck. That is one of those mystical mumbo-jumbo things designed to make beginners feel inadequate and unwelcome. I have a Virgo moon; I have no time for such nonsense.“) You don’t need to have a tarot deck in hand while you read it. There are black & white reproductions of the Rider deck included with each card’s section, and you can always google full color images. But I did enjoy having a deck to refer to as I went through each of the cards in the guide.

Bottom line: if you’re curious about the tarot, this is a wonderful introduction. Creative work doesn’t need to be your full time job either, if you only work on creative projects in your spare time I think you’ll still enjoy learning about the tarot through the lens of creativity. Even if you’re incredibly skeptical about the tarot — if you’re interested in the subject of creativity and the art of creation, you may end up enjoying how this guide approaches the creative process, and how artistic stumbling blocks can be rethought and reshaped to move a project forward.

//

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FTC disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

As a book pusher myself (I have been known to buy my friends books I love that they express interest in, to help increase the likelihood that they will actually read them), I’m all about discovering books through book bloggers who help spread awareness and buzz for the books they love.

Shannon at River City Reading was the driving force behind many of the great new-to-me fiction authors I picked up last year, such as The Shore by Sara Taylor, Dietland by Sarai Walker, and The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips. I like to discover new fiction authors through trusted recommendations, and Shannon has never disappointed.

My reading tastes align quite closely to Kerry at Entomology of a Bookworm, and I love her recommendations. I’m so glad she made me aware of The Dead Ladies Project by Jessa Crispin, a incredible travelog / guide to living more fully that was one of my favorite non-fiction books of 2015.

Lauren at Malcolm Avenue Review is one of my favorite people that I’ve never met (in person), and she writes incredibly thoughtful reviews. She was another source of one of my favorite non-fiction books of 2015, The Penguin Lessons by Tom Michell.

I read and loved The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin thanks to buzz from the wonderful bloggers Vasilly and Julie from Smiling Shelves.

I read a delightful novella (The House of Paper by Carlos María Domínguez) that never would have hit my radar if not for a great post by Wordman.

I’ve also picked up (and enjoyed) so many popular books that I was on the fence about due to encouragement & enthusiasm from all across the book blogging world. In the past year these books have included Missoula by Jon Krakauer, Rising Strong by Brené Brown, The Martian by Andy Weir, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, and Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

This list mainly focuses on books I’ve discovered within the past year, and even with that limited scope I’m sure I’m forgetting sources of books I’ve read and loved. Not to mention sources of a million books added to my TBR piles. The moral of the story is: the book blogging community is incredible, and I’m so happy to be connected to so many wonderful people who obsess about the same things I do. </gushing>

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Main image background is Bookstore Cat by texasgurl on flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)