Wandering Off the Beaten Path To My Own Benefit
Here I go again, tangentially reading. I've come to the conclusion that I have no problem reading a certain amount of books; my problem lies in sticking to PopSugar's official list for this year. I can't help myself from digressing from the list of prompts.
This month, I started reading Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (This book came to my attention after being mentioned on a special edition of the Canadian panel talk show The Talk in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remarked that it was the book his father gave him in an attempt to teach him about mental illness.) The book seemed a little dry and old, bearing in mind that it all stemmed from a psychoanalysis journal from the seventies.
The one thing I did learn from it that was worth mentioning is the idea of grandiosity and depression as two sides of the same coin; for example, someone who relies upon love by being an achievement-oriented personality is beloved for what they're doing, not who they are, and if eventually they hit upon an area where they are not the cream of the crop (something bound to happen at some point), they will become completely deflated and feel unloved because of this single failure, which could trigger depression. This information wasn't new to me, but it did offer an explanation as to why. As a young child, I was tested and declared officially by the school board as "gifted and talented", so I found this particular section interesting.
Okay, fine, I admit it. That wasn't my only foray away from the beautifully cleared garden path into the wild woods completely unsanctioned by PopSugar. I read Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers . Yes, another Parks and Rec book. Ron Swans-- I mean, Nick Offerman writes about a list of great Americans in this anthology of profiles. You've got your usual types, like former presidents George Washington and James Madison, but you also have some unique and interesting choices, like Conan O'Brien, Yoko Ono, Carol Burnett, Willie Nelson, and Michael Pollan. It's equally great to read this book from start to finish as it is to skim from profile to profile. I learned some details about how these great Americans sometimes weren't so great; it's definitely a fair assessment of each one, as unbiased and objective as possible. That's what makes Gumption stand out for me. I'd definitely recommend it.
That being said, we're here to discuss the PopSugar Reading Challenge. And I have definitely done better than February, but not quite as good as January for this third month. Feeling a sense of the first quarter passing me by, I found it easier to shift into high gear. The prompts themselves even motivated me to fly forward through my own procrastination and distraction (non-related books or otherwise).
Book #6: A book that's under 150 pages
Originally, this was going to be my book that I could read in one day. After all, it is basically a children's book. My slow reading got in the way, though, taking me three days to chip away at this itty-bitty literary gem. Yes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is a classic and now I know why.
Quite remarkably, The Little Prince explains its own significance. In chapter fourteen, the little prince waxes on about how beautiful the desert is, even as they are in search of water, and explains that part of its beauty is that a well is hidden somewhere there, like buried treasure. Our protagonist takes in his words and realizes that this idea can be applied in a more universal way, that "what makes them beautiful is invisible." The narrator believes that physical, tangible things, the kind of things boasted and shoved upon us by a material world, are often mere shells with no value unless we assign it value. Simply put, "what's most important is invisible..."
It's the love we feel, the laughter we hear, and the connections we form in our heart that transcend the physical object. These are the things worth protecting. It's worth quoting the secret that the fox tells us after the little prince tames him: "It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
I also found it interesting how life mirrors art. The author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a pilot who crashed in the Libyan desert and had to travel three days in search of help, very much like the narrator in The Little Prince. The parallels don't stop there, though. The narrator talks about how he once had a love for art, but grown-ups stifled his creativity and he moved away from it. Antoine, of course, enrolled in the art school L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his younger years, something he gave up when the war started. (That's when he became a pilot.) In a strange turn of fate, after Antoine sustained an injury, he was supposedly forbidden to fly, but nonetheless, he insisted on being given some sort of flying duty. So, in 1944, Antoine set out from Borgo, Corsica, as part of the French air squadron, tasked to fly over Nazi-occupied France.
And no one ever saw him again.
Antoine wrote The Little Prince in 1943 and vanished into the stars (just like the little prince) in 1944. Spooky.
On a more brutal note, there is also a tale of euthanasia here. Certainly, that's not explicitly communicated and perhaps it was never even the author's intent, but, by the end of the tale, I could sense a glimmer of it -- that message in support of dying on your own terms through mercy killing. Oh, I don't want to give too much away, in case some people haven't been lucky enough to discover this brief tale of love and loss. I think I'll zip my lip from hereon.
Book #7: An autobiography
Spanning from her highly unstructured years of home-schooling to her awkward thrust-upon-her-by-chance music college years to her final rise to Internet stardom (and the fallout), Felicia Day wrote her life story, You're Never Weird on the Internet , in the same style for which she is known.
For anyone who doesn't know Felicia Day, it would be worth the time to check her out, either through her Geek and Sundry videos or even her popular Goodreads page.
As someone with a bit of a Type A personality myself, I related to all the micromanaging quirks. In fact, one of the most important chapters (although it wasn't my favourite) was called "The Deletion of Myself" and dealt with stepping back and saying, "No," instead of reaching for every opportunity. In Felicia's case, diving into so much so often had extremely negative consequences, putting her health at risk.
My father has anxiety and depression, so I understand the reluctance to view mental illness as a disease that you need help to fix. That's why page 228 resonated with me: "Imagine saying to someone, 'I have a kidney problem, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' Nothing but sympathy, right? [...] Then pretend to say, 'I have severe depression and anxiety, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' They just look at you like you're broken, right? Unfixable. Inherently flawed. Maybe not someone they want to hang around as much? Yeah, society sucks."
And she's right. People step back and treat you like you're patient zero when it's mental illness. There's no sympathy for your disease when you can't see it reflected back at them as a terrible rash or an iffy number in a blood test. Either people drop you like a hot potato or they think they can fix you with a knock-knock joke. In my father's experience, you need help and support and even medicine, but you also have to learn to fix yourself. It's hard. No question about it, it's an uphill battle. But it's doable.
Felicia's message ultimately is one of encouragement, for all kinds of people. I think I can sum up her book in this little nutshell from page 232: "You need to be able to feel proud of yourself even if you were living in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, taking care of goats. You are unique and good enough JUST AS YOU ARE. As a theoretical goat herder."
Book #8: A book you can finish in a day
I tried reading Ethan Frome , but the clock hit midnight and -- poof! -- the book didn't meet the requirement of this prompt. Sure, it is possible that I could have finished it in a day, but I didn't; if I'm going to do this challenge, I'm going to do it right. So, instead, I moved on to Maria Shriver's Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into the Real World .
I read Shriver's book in the span of a few hours. Based on Shriver's commencement speech at Holy Cross, this book doles out little pearls of wisdom that she has gained throughout her life. These pieces of advice are trite, sure, but they are said so often because they are true.
One of her lessons is that "no job is beneath you." She reminds the reader that "starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility--a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve." Maria details her ill-fated attempts to do the sound on a news program, only to discover that she was utterly incompetent in that regard. Once removed from that, she was able to do field reporting entirely (instead of balancing that with sound). By starting at the bottom, she ended up learning everything there was to know about reporting, which was her true love. She also learned that not only did she not like working with sound equipment, but that she was dreadful at it. Only way to do that was to start by working at the bottom.
To be fair, most of us don't consider working at a news station a lowly job, but there is some truth in that you can learn something everywhere, even if the lesson you learn is that you don't want or cannot do what you're doing at that job. The only way to be certain of that is by doing it.
... which brings me to another piece of advice Maria gives so generously: "Failing is part of learning." We've all heard this one before, so it comes as no surprise. I do like that Maria recognized that college grads do not have that in their brains. They're hardwired to succeed and be whatever they want to be. They believe every inspirational quote that's been thrown at them. There's no problem with believing in yourself; it's admirable and should be encouraged.
But reality sets in and then you're left feeling disappointed that you're not winning awards for just showing up. This naive outlook is extremely common and, when those dreams aren't fulfilled, it can lead to those depressed feelings I mentioned before from Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (See? Sometimes it's good that I veer off of the reading challenge. I may just learn something!)
As Maria puts it, "the hidden message was this: If you fail, shame on you. Well, that's not true."
Even more importantly, she recognizes that work should not be your one and only goal because it won't keep you warm at night. She learned to "quit identifying [her]self through [her] career." You should live all aspects of your life.
... which brings me to yet another gem! "Superwoman is dead . . . and Superman may be taking Viagra." That is how Maria puts it. A little abstract, but the gist is that absolutely nobody can do it all. They cannot be Martha Stewart in the home and kitchen, Jenna Jameson in the bedroom, and Barbara Walters (or whomever fits your field of work) in the office. It is absolutely delusional to think that you can do it all ... right now. You can do it all, sure, but "life is a marathon," as Maria says, and that means that you can do all of those things and more over the course of a lifetime. You can be June Cleaver with your baby for some time, but then you'll have to skip the PTA if you want to be CEO. There's a time for everything and something will always have to give. Do not beat yourself up about it and absolutely do not compare yourself to others. Their priorities are not your priorities; their resources are not your resources. You do what you can with what you have and you never try to match up with anything else around you.
I have been lucky enough to have a good mother who instilled those lessons at an early age. I grew up in a neighbourhood with supremely wealthy folk. I don't think we were in the same tax bracket (but then again, what do I know? Sometimes people foolishly live beyond their means -- another thing I've learned) and yet I never felt less than them because I never compared my experiences and my goals and my worth to anything anyone had around me. The reality is that they are not me. I never played that game.
This game starts young. I can recall vividly how frequently comparisons are made in university, high school, and even elementary school. There is always an air of ridiculous competition. When everyone in my class wanted to know my mark, I didn't want to say it aloud. I didn't want to: a) compare myself to others because, but also, b) give others a reason to compare themselves to me. It may sound arrogant, but I'm just trying to report the facts: I did exceptionally well in school. Anything -- and I do mean anything -- that was thrown at me, I was able to excel at, which left a lot of my peers feeling less-than. That was never my intention. I was just being the best me I could be, but I always felt a little bit bad about it. It's unfortunate, but I have realized since then that it was them comparing themselves to me and I never gave them reason to do so. I almost always encouraged those around me. I was not them and they were not me, and I certainly never asked them to be.
And now, I'm full grown, and most, if not all, of that school pressure has dissipated. Other pressures enter your life, but if you're lucky, you've learned how to deal with them. Sure, I wrote a few books and I'm getting married this June, but that doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else. I know many unmarried people younger than me who don't work but who have one or two or more children and that has been their priority, not mine. It takes all types to make the world go 'round; it sounds condescending, yes, but it is absolutely not. My mother and Maria Shriver both made it perfectly clear that comparisons are lethal and helpful to no one. The goal is simply to grow you, not you in relation to everyone around you.
The hardest part of this piece of advice (or any advice, really) is internalizing it. It can all feel hippy-dippy and nice but unrealistic, but if you engrain it into your being and live your life in line with it, then it just becomes the truth of your existence. Eventually, the little voice in the back of your head doesn't have to tell yourself to be this way or don't be that way. You just live your life that way, in accordance with those values.
Oh, one last gem: Be smart with your finances. It doesn't matter what you make; you should know where your money is and what you're doing with it, or rather, what it's doing for you. (Again, I've lived my life this way for so long, starting with my first safe at the age of four, that this way of life has just become automatic. But you can always learn more. And I do.)
Maria did say other things in this itty-bitty book, but I only mentioned what I found the most interesting. I bet you if you read it, you'd find something completely different worth quoting.
To be fair, this book was very short. That's why I chose to read it; it only took a few hours. I feel that, given more time and more pages, Maria could have written you a very detailed template-style manual for your life. That's just the kind of woman she is.
The only things I didn't like about her book is that some of her comments, especially regarding her husband, feel painful now. Written far before scandal hit her marriage, there was no way for her to know what was coming to her and what was going on behind her back. I can't blame her for not being psychic, but I also cannot deny that these sections of the book made me a touch squirmish.
So that was this month in reading. I read a great deal, but only three books qualified for the reading challenge. C'est la vie.
Next month could be interesting. I've been skimming the prompts again and have found "a murder mystery" particularly icky. In general, I don't like the murder mystery genre. Whodunnits and detectives and crime stories make me snore. However, I love books like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . In fact, The Millennium Trilogy are possibly my favourite books ever, owing largely to the iconic titular character, Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately for this challenge, I've read all of that series already. I know Gillian Flynn has penned a few more books, but I'm not sure if they're murder mysteries and I don't want to do too much research for fear of spoilers. So, here lies my conundrum. What murder mystery should I read? Send me your suggestions!
This month, I started reading Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (This book came to my attention after being mentioned on a special edition of the Canadian panel talk show The Talk in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remarked that it was the book his father gave him in an attempt to teach him about mental illness.) The book seemed a little dry and old, bearing in mind that it all stemmed from a psychoanalysis journal from the seventies.
The one thing I did learn from it that was worth mentioning is the idea of grandiosity and depression as two sides of the same coin; for example, someone who relies upon love by being an achievement-oriented personality is beloved for what they're doing, not who they are, and if eventually they hit upon an area where they are not the cream of the crop (something bound to happen at some point), they will become completely deflated and feel unloved because of this single failure, which could trigger depression. This information wasn't new to me, but it did offer an explanation as to why. As a young child, I was tested and declared officially by the school board as "gifted and talented", so I found this particular section interesting.
Okay, fine, I admit it. That wasn't my only foray away from the beautifully cleared garden path into the wild woods completely unsanctioned by PopSugar. I read Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers . Yes, another Parks and Rec book. Ron Swans-- I mean, Nick Offerman writes about a list of great Americans in this anthology of profiles. You've got your usual types, like former presidents George Washington and James Madison, but you also have some unique and interesting choices, like Conan O'Brien, Yoko Ono, Carol Burnett, Willie Nelson, and Michael Pollan. It's equally great to read this book from start to finish as it is to skim from profile to profile. I learned some details about how these great Americans sometimes weren't so great; it's definitely a fair assessment of each one, as unbiased and objective as possible. That's what makes Gumption stand out for me. I'd definitely recommend it.
That being said, we're here to discuss the PopSugar Reading Challenge. And I have definitely done better than February, but not quite as good as January for this third month. Feeling a sense of the first quarter passing me by, I found it easier to shift into high gear. The prompts themselves even motivated me to fly forward through my own procrastination and distraction (non-related books or otherwise).
Book #6: A book that's under 150 pages
Originally, this was going to be my book that I could read in one day. After all, it is basically a children's book. My slow reading got in the way, though, taking me three days to chip away at this itty-bitty literary gem. Yes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is a classic and now I know why.
Quite remarkably, The Little Prince explains its own significance. In chapter fourteen, the little prince waxes on about how beautiful the desert is, even as they are in search of water, and explains that part of its beauty is that a well is hidden somewhere there, like buried treasure. Our protagonist takes in his words and realizes that this idea can be applied in a more universal way, that "what makes them beautiful is invisible." The narrator believes that physical, tangible things, the kind of things boasted and shoved upon us by a material world, are often mere shells with no value unless we assign it value. Simply put, "what's most important is invisible..."
It's the love we feel, the laughter we hear, and the connections we form in our heart that transcend the physical object. These are the things worth protecting. It's worth quoting the secret that the fox tells us after the little prince tames him: "It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
I also found it interesting how life mirrors art. The author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a pilot who crashed in the Libyan desert and had to travel three days in search of help, very much like the narrator in The Little Prince. The parallels don't stop there, though. The narrator talks about how he once had a love for art, but grown-ups stifled his creativity and he moved away from it. Antoine, of course, enrolled in the art school L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his younger years, something he gave up when the war started. (That's when he became a pilot.) In a strange turn of fate, after Antoine sustained an injury, he was supposedly forbidden to fly, but nonetheless, he insisted on being given some sort of flying duty. So, in 1944, Antoine set out from Borgo, Corsica, as part of the French air squadron, tasked to fly over Nazi-occupied France.
And no one ever saw him again.
Antoine wrote The Little Prince in 1943 and vanished into the stars (just like the little prince) in 1944. Spooky.
On a more brutal note, there is also a tale of euthanasia here. Certainly, that's not explicitly communicated and perhaps it was never even the author's intent, but, by the end of the tale, I could sense a glimmer of it -- that message in support of dying on your own terms through mercy killing. Oh, I don't want to give too much away, in case some people haven't been lucky enough to discover this brief tale of love and loss. I think I'll zip my lip from hereon.
Book #7: An autobiography
Spanning from her highly unstructured years of home-schooling to her awkward thrust-upon-her-by-chance music college years to her final rise to Internet stardom (and the fallout), Felicia Day wrote her life story, You're Never Weird on the Internet , in the same style for which she is known.
For anyone who doesn't know Felicia Day, it would be worth the time to check her out, either through her Geek and Sundry videos or even her popular Goodreads page.
As someone with a bit of a Type A personality myself, I related to all the micromanaging quirks. In fact, one of the most important chapters (although it wasn't my favourite) was called "The Deletion of Myself" and dealt with stepping back and saying, "No," instead of reaching for every opportunity. In Felicia's case, diving into so much so often had extremely negative consequences, putting her health at risk.
My father has anxiety and depression, so I understand the reluctance to view mental illness as a disease that you need help to fix. That's why page 228 resonated with me: "Imagine saying to someone, 'I have a kidney problem, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' Nothing but sympathy, right? [...] Then pretend to say, 'I have severe depression and anxiety, and I'm having a lot of bad days lately.' They just look at you like you're broken, right? Unfixable. Inherently flawed. Maybe not someone they want to hang around as much? Yeah, society sucks."
And she's right. People step back and treat you like you're patient zero when it's mental illness. There's no sympathy for your disease when you can't see it reflected back at them as a terrible rash or an iffy number in a blood test. Either people drop you like a hot potato or they think they can fix you with a knock-knock joke. In my father's experience, you need help and support and even medicine, but you also have to learn to fix yourself. It's hard. No question about it, it's an uphill battle. But it's doable.
Felicia's message ultimately is one of encouragement, for all kinds of people. I think I can sum up her book in this little nutshell from page 232: "You need to be able to feel proud of yourself even if you were living in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, taking care of goats. You are unique and good enough JUST AS YOU ARE. As a theoretical goat herder."
Book #8: A book you can finish in a day
I tried reading Ethan Frome , but the clock hit midnight and -- poof! -- the book didn't meet the requirement of this prompt. Sure, it is possible that I could have finished it in a day, but I didn't; if I'm going to do this challenge, I'm going to do it right. So, instead, I moved on to Maria Shriver's Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into the Real World .
I read Shriver's book in the span of a few hours. Based on Shriver's commencement speech at Holy Cross, this book doles out little pearls of wisdom that she has gained throughout her life. These pieces of advice are trite, sure, but they are said so often because they are true.
One of her lessons is that "no job is beneath you." She reminds the reader that "starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humility--a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve." Maria details her ill-fated attempts to do the sound on a news program, only to discover that she was utterly incompetent in that regard. Once removed from that, she was able to do field reporting entirely (instead of balancing that with sound). By starting at the bottom, she ended up learning everything there was to know about reporting, which was her true love. She also learned that not only did she not like working with sound equipment, but that she was dreadful at it. Only way to do that was to start by working at the bottom.
To be fair, most of us don't consider working at a news station a lowly job, but there is some truth in that you can learn something everywhere, even if the lesson you learn is that you don't want or cannot do what you're doing at that job. The only way to be certain of that is by doing it.
... which brings me to another piece of advice Maria gives so generously: "Failing is part of learning." We've all heard this one before, so it comes as no surprise. I do like that Maria recognized that college grads do not have that in their brains. They're hardwired to succeed and be whatever they want to be. They believe every inspirational quote that's been thrown at them. There's no problem with believing in yourself; it's admirable and should be encouraged.
But reality sets in and then you're left feeling disappointed that you're not winning awards for just showing up. This naive outlook is extremely common and, when those dreams aren't fulfilled, it can lead to those depressed feelings I mentioned before from Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self . (See? Sometimes it's good that I veer off of the reading challenge. I may just learn something!)
As Maria puts it, "the hidden message was this: If you fail, shame on you. Well, that's not true."
Even more importantly, she recognizes that work should not be your one and only goal because it won't keep you warm at night. She learned to "quit identifying [her]self through [her] career." You should live all aspects of your life.
... which brings me to yet another gem! "Superwoman is dead . . . and Superman may be taking Viagra." That is how Maria puts it. A little abstract, but the gist is that absolutely nobody can do it all. They cannot be Martha Stewart in the home and kitchen, Jenna Jameson in the bedroom, and Barbara Walters (or whomever fits your field of work) in the office. It is absolutely delusional to think that you can do it all ... right now. You can do it all, sure, but "life is a marathon," as Maria says, and that means that you can do all of those things and more over the course of a lifetime. You can be June Cleaver with your baby for some time, but then you'll have to skip the PTA if you want to be CEO. There's a time for everything and something will always have to give. Do not beat yourself up about it and absolutely do not compare yourself to others. Their priorities are not your priorities; their resources are not your resources. You do what you can with what you have and you never try to match up with anything else around you.
I have been lucky enough to have a good mother who instilled those lessons at an early age. I grew up in a neighbourhood with supremely wealthy folk. I don't think we were in the same tax bracket (but then again, what do I know? Sometimes people foolishly live beyond their means -- another thing I've learned) and yet I never felt less than them because I never compared my experiences and my goals and my worth to anything anyone had around me. The reality is that they are not me. I never played that game.
This game starts young. I can recall vividly how frequently comparisons are made in university, high school, and even elementary school. There is always an air of ridiculous competition. When everyone in my class wanted to know my mark, I didn't want to say it aloud. I didn't want to: a) compare myself to others because, but also, b) give others a reason to compare themselves to me. It may sound arrogant, but I'm just trying to report the facts: I did exceptionally well in school. Anything -- and I do mean anything -- that was thrown at me, I was able to excel at, which left a lot of my peers feeling less-than. That was never my intention. I was just being the best me I could be, but I always felt a little bit bad about it. It's unfortunate, but I have realized since then that it was them comparing themselves to me and I never gave them reason to do so. I almost always encouraged those around me. I was not them and they were not me, and I certainly never asked them to be.
And now, I'm full grown, and most, if not all, of that school pressure has dissipated. Other pressures enter your life, but if you're lucky, you've learned how to deal with them. Sure, I wrote a few books and I'm getting married this June, but that doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else. I know many unmarried people younger than me who don't work but who have one or two or more children and that has been their priority, not mine. It takes all types to make the world go 'round; it sounds condescending, yes, but it is absolutely not. My mother and Maria Shriver both made it perfectly clear that comparisons are lethal and helpful to no one. The goal is simply to grow you, not you in relation to everyone around you.
The hardest part of this piece of advice (or any advice, really) is internalizing it. It can all feel hippy-dippy and nice but unrealistic, but if you engrain it into your being and live your life in line with it, then it just becomes the truth of your existence. Eventually, the little voice in the back of your head doesn't have to tell yourself to be this way or don't be that way. You just live your life that way, in accordance with those values.
Oh, one last gem: Be smart with your finances. It doesn't matter what you make; you should know where your money is and what you're doing with it, or rather, what it's doing for you. (Again, I've lived my life this way for so long, starting with my first safe at the age of four, that this way of life has just become automatic. But you can always learn more. And I do.)
Maria did say other things in this itty-bitty book, but I only mentioned what I found the most interesting. I bet you if you read it, you'd find something completely different worth quoting.
To be fair, this book was very short. That's why I chose to read it; it only took a few hours. I feel that, given more time and more pages, Maria could have written you a very detailed template-style manual for your life. That's just the kind of woman she is.
The only things I didn't like about her book is that some of her comments, especially regarding her husband, feel painful now. Written far before scandal hit her marriage, there was no way for her to know what was coming to her and what was going on behind her back. I can't blame her for not being psychic, but I also cannot deny that these sections of the book made me a touch squirmish.
So that was this month in reading. I read a great deal, but only three books qualified for the reading challenge. C'est la vie.
Next month could be interesting. I've been skimming the prompts again and have found "a murder mystery" particularly icky. In general, I don't like the murder mystery genre. Whodunnits and detectives and crime stories make me snore. However, I love books like Gone Girl and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . In fact, The Millennium Trilogy are possibly my favourite books ever, owing largely to the iconic titular character, Lisbeth Salander. Unfortunately for this challenge, I've read all of that series already. I know Gillian Flynn has penned a few more books, but I'm not sure if they're murder mysteries and I don't want to do too much research for fear of spoilers. So, here lies my conundrum. What murder mystery should I read? Send me your suggestions!
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