This week’s book is a page turner…because we can’t always be focused on self-improvement. As a person who loves words, I have been an avid reader all my life. In my younger years I held to a reading program that included four types of books: one on self-improvement, a biography or autobiography, a non-fiction on something I wanted to learn about, and a page-turner for fun. Sometimes I could get through all four books in a month, sometimes over a couple months, but I kept to that cycle to remain balanced. (All work and no play makes me dull, but nothing but play makes me a hedonist, so strike a happy balance!)
This week’s book is a page turner…because we can’t always be
focused on self-improvement. As a person who loves words, I have been an avid
reader all my life. In my younger years I held to a reading program that
included four types of books: one on self-improvement, a biography or
autobiography, a non-fiction on something I wanted to learn about, and a
page-turner for fun. Sometimes I could get through all four books in a month,
sometimes over a couple months, but I kept to that cycle to remain balanced. (All
work and no play makes me dull, but nothing but play makes me a hedonist, so
strike a happy balance!)
This year I am embarking on a more ambitious reading program:
the Reshelving Alexandria Bonus Reading Challenge. I choose 52 books on specific topics
and try to read those 52 books in 52 weeks. I started a week early and am
choosing many titles from my personal library to keep the cost down, but I am
on book 5 in the second week. I figured spring and summer might slow my reading
down, so I opted for starting strong. We shall see if I am able to complete the
challenge, lol.
You don’t need to adopt such a formal program, but I do want
to encourage you to become an avid reader of many genres. Life Hack suggest ten reasons why reading underscores a healthy life. Included
are mental stimulation, pleasure, stress reduction, memory growth, knowledge
gained…and the list goes on. Reading is good for you, my friend!
On that note, let me suggest a good read. This fulfills my
book #17 (I am obviously not going in order) in my reading challenge—an
epistolary novel. I had to look that up—it’s a book with sequential entries as
in a diary, a memoir or log entries. I love a page turner, so I chose The
Martian by Andy Weir. If you saw the film, you really need to read the
book. It’s not like picking up a two-ton tome of War and Peace. It’s a
short read and it does contain some profanity, but a hero leaps out of the
pages.
Our hapless hero, John Watney, is stranded on Mars. How will
he survive? We learn he has a delightfully wicked sense of humor. He is handy.
He is creative. He is upbeat. These character qualities make the character
someone to emulate in real life. If I can be upbeat, creative, full of laughter
and get things accomplished, I can be a mini-heroine in a very dark time in our
world. I think that’s a great goal to set for myself.
As you read his log entries, you realize that he becomes
the hero as adversity falls upon him. He is injured and left for dead. He faces
setbacks and dilemmas that might have squashed other characters. He grows by
virtue of having to grow. Are we not all in that same boat? Rather than
succumbing to each misfortune and letting it destroy him, our hero picks
himself up by the bootstraps and rises to each occasion. So, too, may each of
us as we bear the misfortunes of life.
We live in a tumultuous time. We all know it, so there’s no
reason for belaboring the point—but we don’t have to be victimized by the
events transpiring around us. We can rise above our circumstances in small ways
that make us great. This is the legacy of The Martian.
This year I am embarking on a more ambitious reading program:
the Reshelving Alexandria Bonus Reading Challenge. I choose 52 books on specific topics
and try to read those 52 books in 52 weeks. I started a week early and am
choosing many titles from my personal library to keep the cost down, but I am
on book 5 in the second week. I figured spring and summer might slow my reading
down, so I opted for starting strong. We shall see if I am able to complete the
challenge, lol.
You don’t need to adopt such a formal program, but I do want
to encourage you to become an avid reader of many genres. Life Hack suggest ten reasons why reading underscores a healthy life. Included
are mental stimulation, pleasure, stress reduction, memory growth, knowledge
gained…and the list goes on. Reading is good for you, my friend!
On that note, let me suggest a good read. This fulfills my
book #17 (I am obviously not going in order) in my reading challenge—an
epistolary novel. I had to look that up—it’s a book with sequential entries as
in a diary, a memoir or log entries. I love a page turner, so I chose The
Martian by Andy Weir. If you saw the film, you really need to read the
book. It’s not like picking up a two-ton tome of War and Peace. It’s a
short read and it does contain some profanity, but a hero leaps out of the
pages.
Our hapless hero, John Watney, is stranded on Mars. How will
he survive? We learn he has a delightfully wicked sense of humor. He is handy.
He is creative. He is upbeat. These character qualities make the character
someone to emulate in real life. If I can be upbeat, creative, full of laughter
and get things accomplished, I can be a mini-heroine in a very dark time in our
world. I think that’s a great goal to set for myself.
As you read his log entries, you realize that he becomes
the hero as adversity falls upon him. He is injured and left for dead. He faces
setbacks and dilemmas that might have squashed other characters. He grows by
virtue of having to grow. Are we not all in that same boat? Rather than
succumbing to each misfortune and letting it destroy him, our hero picks
himself up by the bootstraps and rises to each occasion. So, too, may each of
us as we bear the misfortunes of life.
We live in a tumultuous time. We all know it, so there’s no
reason for belaboring the point—but we don’t have to be victimized by the
events transpiring around us. We can rise above our circumstances in small ways
that make us great. This is the legacy of The Martian.
