Book Review: The Blackmail Blend by Livia Day

I love reading. Books are amazing. They are a form of escapism, yes, but they are also inspiration, joy, and... well. Goodness. I think in some ways I have used my appetite for reading to define parts of my personality, so it made sense for me to review some of what I read! Here we go...

goodreads

Title: The Blackmail Blend
Author: Livia Day
Series: Cafe La Femme #1.5
Publication Date: June 12th 2015

Synopsis: "Six romance writers
Five secrets
Four poison pen letters
Three stolen manuscripts
Two undercover journalists
One over-complicated love life
Way too many teacups and tiny sandwiches

This shouldn't be a recipe for mayhem and murder, but Tabitha Darling has been burned once before and she knows the signs that she's about to fall into another crime scene. At least she doesn't have to worry about love triangles anymore. Right? RIGHT?"

My thoughts: My mini-in-the-mean-time review of this short story on goodreads was "Oh man this is like a big warm hug." And I stand by it. This welcomed me back into the world of Tabitha Darling so effectively that I must admit to wriggling with happiness whilst reading it.

The books featuring Tabitha Darling are mystery novels with a difference - they feature tea, cake, and a touch of romance - the resulting concoction is delightful to read and delicious to consume. I love the humour in these stories, it is just the right balance of cheeky and sometimes a little dark, and it just keeps everything moving along so wonderfully. Tabitha Darling is such a relatable character, thrust into mystery madness, that you can't help but love her and want to stick with her every step of the way.

I have placed my order for the second book in this series - Drowned Vanilla - and I will be devouring that as soon as I can get my hands on it!


I received a review ecopy of this short story from the publisher, Twelfth Planet Press. (Thank youuu!)

You would like this book if: you enjoy mysteries with lovely characters; you like reading about someone with similar weaknesses for tea and cake.

Tea to drink while reading this book: why not the Tabitha blend mention in the book? It's available from the publisher, and you can get a copy of the ebook while you're at it!

Rating:  10/10

If you'd like to keep up to date with what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads here!

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What 'burnout' actually means for me at the moment, and why it's still happening.

I mentioned this topic recently, but mostly discusses the different roles that people occupy and how that was influencing my burnout, rather than the burnout itself or why it was happening. This time, I'm going to talk about that a little deeper.

I'm probably going to leave a few things out of this. I'm not sure I want to talk about everything that is going on, or has been going on, but I want to write things out. I'm exactly sure why I feel the need to do this on my blog, but I think a small part of me hopes that by writing about it, it will help other people dealing with something similar.

Anyway, here we go, I guess.

I am having so much trouble at the moment just doing things. Sometimes I get little bursts of energy and motivation, and then I will do something like unload the dishwasher and put the recycling in the bin, and then I will go back to not being able to do very much. And I must admit that during this time I have kind of slipped back into old, unhelpful habits, like telling myself I should be doing more, feeling irritated with myself, and circling my mind repeatedly with the same old lines.

Like I said, it's unhelpful.

And I think it might be part of the reason why I'm still feeling so burnt out.

By not allowing myself the time to rest and recover from everything, the way my body and mind need me to at the moment, I am actually just prolonging this state. It's like when you get a cold - sure, maybe in the first few days you could push through and assume that it will sort itself out, but actually you just make yourself sicker and then you end up needing to rest for even longer than if you had just taken a day off at the very start of the cold.

I feel like I am slipping backwards with a lot of things - my stomach, after months of not much pain, has started giving me pain again. Honestly, I don't think I have actually recovered properly at all from my cystitis, as it will come back whenever it can. I constantly feel like I'm about to get a migraine, and my skin is feeling like it is going to break out at any moment. I feel lethargic, sore all over, and thoroughly depleted.

And yet I can't stop thinking about study and how I haven't done any readings today, or the fact that I have assignments due soon. Somehow the joy of rest has dropped out of my head at some point and I find myself trying to push my body and mind to do things that they just doesn't seem capable of doing at the moment. In this constant struggle of will against body and mind (and, what the heck, spirit too), I don't think anyone really wins.

I know what the obvious answer is - to take some time off to myself. But I feel like it's more than this. I think I need to reboot my approach again, so that I can take better care of myself. Sometimes we have to foresee when things are going to go a bit haywire, and put safety mechanisms in place so that we can go somewhere and recharge after the worst has passed.

I will try and post further about this once I discover more, just so I can have some advice to give myself later down the track, but I'm not sure when that will be.

I hope that, whatever you are doing, it involves a little bit of self-care.

Love to all who read.

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Book Review: Shards of Hope by Nalini Singh

I love reading. Books are amazing. They are a form of escapism, yes, but they are also inspiration, joy, and... well. Goodness. I think in some ways I have used my appetite for reading to define parts of my personality, so it made sense for me to review some of what I read! Here we go...

goodreads

Title: Shards of Hope
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling Series #14
Publication Date: June 4th 2015

Synopsis: "Awakening wounded in a darkened cell, their psychic abilities blocked, Aden and Zaira know they must escape. But when the lethal soldiers break free from their mysterious prison, they find themselves in a harsh, inhospitable landscape far from civilisation. Their only hope for survival is to make it to the hidden home of a predatory changeling pack that doesn't welcome outsiders.
And they must survive. A shadowy enemy has put a target on the back of the Arrow squad, an enemy that cannot be permitted to succeed in its deadly campaign. Aden will cross any line to keep his people safe for this future, where even an assassin might have hope of a life beyond blood and death and pain. Zaira has no such hope. She knows she's too damaged to return from the abyss. Her driving goal is to protect Aden, protext the only person has ever come back for her no matter what.
This time, even Aden's Passionate determination may not be enough - because the emotionless chill of Silence existed for a reason. For the violent, and the insane, and the irreparably broken...like Zaira."

My thoughts: I have tried this series before, and have not had much luck. Granted, every time I try this series it is one of the later books, so I think that may be a bit of a no-no, as I find it really hard to gauge who is who and what is actually going on.

This book started off no different. I had no idea what was going on. But the characters were intriguing and so I stuck with it. The development of Aden and Zaira's characters and their relationship was extremely interesting, and I found myself thinking about it occasionally when I wasn't reading. I was also fascinated by the changeling characters and their concepts of family and pack, and that has made me interested in maybe going back and reading from the start, to see if I can find more out about them.

However, I had quite a few issues with this book. Occasionally it felt like every single character in this entire world had a shocking and traumatic past which was mentioned more than once - with Zaira, it felt like it came back every single time she was on the page or in the scene. There is only so many times that you can read about someone's horrific, abusive past, and their murderous tendencies. I understand that maybe Singh wanted to make it authentic, perhaps try to reflect the obsessive mind or indicate lingering issues with post-traumatic stress, but I know little about these conditions and it ended up feeling tedious to read about it often, if not a little bit triggering for me.

There are other storylines going on within this book, of which I will say little so that I don't give anything away, but to be honest I think I could have dealt without them. The storyline following Aden and Zaira was interesting enough for me, and I think the book could have benefited from being made a lot shorter and having less going on - I found myself kind of skim-reading the other parts of the book so I could get back to the main couple in question.

Overall, this book has made me interested in starting the series 'properly', which I think is a good result, but I also wasn't overall impressed with it.


I received an unsolicited review copy of this book from Hachette (thank you!).

You would like this book if: You have been following the psy-changeling series and want to know about Aden and Zaira; you enjoy darker paranormal romance books with damaged characters.

Tea to drink while reading this book: something dark with a bit of bite, maybe a nice rich Russian Caravan.

Rating:  5.5/10

If you'd like to keep up to date with what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads here!

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Human Complexity

There's been so much going on in my world lately: finishing Study Period One for this year, starting Study Period Two, my dad going in and out of hospital a couple of times (he is fine now, just in case you were worried!), and me catching the cold of doom, to name a few. And the result of all that is that I feel super burnt out now. For a few days I didn't really want to do anything and I couldn't encourage interest in much outside of lying in bed staring at Castle reruns and maybe eating some food. (I still got myself out of bed on these occasions and tried to do things anyway, but it did feel a little hollow.)

It took Xin repeatedly telling me that I seemed a bit burnt out, and my realising that he had complimented me on things, or someone had said something to me, and I just kept forgetting that these things had happened. I would say something and then Xin would ask 'do you remember me saying that to you this morning?' and I would be like 'no...'. My brain had taken a holiday for a few days, taking me memory along with it. (Again, just in case you were worrying, it wasn't anything major, just little things here and there. I seem to be fine now.)

For those that have met with burnout before, you probably know this creature. It really makes it hard to do anything and, for those of us with already compromised immune systems, it can actually make you quite unwell. My cold has yet to go away completely and it has been around for about a two weeks now. This led to a lot of time with me just idly thinking about things, and I realised that what I was thinking was a little troublesome.

You see, recently it has come to light that Centrelink want me to apply for five jobs a fortnight to show my commitment to getting employed, so that I will keep getting paid. Putting all my issues with this aside, let's just say that that has brought up a lot of stuff for me. It has made me start thinking that maybe I am not as sick as I think I am (old problem) and that I should be going out and getting a job (another old problem that hasn't been around for a little while).

This led me to thinking about what I actually wanted to do with my life, and how come I hadn't been writing in so long, and what right did I have to choose a job when so many people just pushed through and worked jobs that they hated. And ERRHGHGHGHGHGH. You may be familiar.

Over the last couple of days I have been chatting with Xin and my dad about these things, just talking about them without any sort of doom and gloom or fear, and what I have realised (again) is this: people rarely occupy just one role. In fact, I think that is pretty much impossible. If I start trying to define myself by the fact that I am currently unemployed, then I will exist solely around that definition, and I will welcome depression back in with open arms. It would represent a complete dismissal of everything else I am: book reviewer, writer, blogger, student. Not to mention daughter, sister, fiance and friend. It also works to dismiss the things that I still deal with when it comes to my health, and the fact that I decided to study online this year to try and take the pressure off a little bit.

With that in mind, I am going to keep dreaming about what sort of jobs I would like to have, but I am also not going to take my other roles for granted. Studying at uni is actually a lot more work than some would think, particularly for me, and I would rather finish that this year than get a job and try and work as well as study until I burn out and have to take time off before completing my degree.

This means I may have to continue to relearn lessons that I thought I already knew, and I may have to talk to those close to me over and over about different things, but I am going to try and do what's right by me during that time.

May you always see how complex and wonderful you are, and not define yourself by one single role.Work is what you do, not who you are. Love to all who read.

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Book Review: The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows

I love reading. Books are amazing. They are a form of escapism, yes, but they are also inspiration, joy, and... well. Goodness. I think in some ways I have used my appetite for reading to define parts of my personality, so it made sense for me to review some of what I read! Here we go...

dymocks

Title: The Truth According to Us
Author: Annie Barrows
Publication Date: June 12th 2015

Synopsis: "In the Summer of 1938, Layla Beck is forced out of the lap of luxury and sent by her senator father to work on the Federal Writers' Project, a New Deal jobs program. Assigned to cover the history of the little mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, Layla envisions a summer of tedium.
But, once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is completely drawn into their complex world.
At the Romeyn house, twelve-year-old Willa is desperate to acquire her favourite virtues of ferocity and devotion, but her search leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried.
Layla's Arrival strikes a match to the family's veneer, bringing to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns and their deep entanglement in Macedonia's history. As Willa peels back the layers of her family's past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed - and their personal histories completely rewritten."

My thoughts: Very much like the previous book that Barrows worked on - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - I was taken by surprise by how much I enjoyed this book. The characters were so interesting and hid secrets that just begged to be uncovered. Layla Beck's character in particular intrigued me - I don't think I have ever simultaneously loved a character and also been so frustrated with their willful ignorance. At times I would mutter to myself 'stupid stupid girl', but then would keep reading because I needed to find out what happened next.

Willa is also an interesting character, somehow managing to be both your typical 12-year-old girl and someone quite intelligent and interesting to read about. At times - particularly towards the very end - I found her to be a bit too intelligent for someone 12 years old, but it somehow all fit with the story, so I forgave her for that. Both she and Layla Beck managed to do some sleuthing and finding things out, but each on their own, and following their stories as they veered towards each other was fascinating and even quite exciting.

But I wasn't just fascinated by Willa and Layla - all of the characters offered something amazing to the story, and I found myself doing that wonderful thing that you can sometimes do in books, where you disappear entirely into the setting and feel like you are a fly on the wall, watching everything and wincing when things start to go pear-shaped, or feeling heart-warmed when things go well. Barrows has described an good setting, yes, but it really is the characters in this story that make you feel welcome and excited to keep reading. To be honest, I am tempted to pick this one up again for a cheeky re-read, just to see if I missed anything the first time round.


I received a pre-release copy of this book from Dymocks as part of their Gold Booklovers Program, in exchange for an honest review.

You would like this book if: You enjoy complex and wonderful characters; you feel like some garden-variety sleuthing.

Tea to drink while reading this book: Iced tea - particularly lemon iced tea - so you can feel like you're sitting on the porch with Willa and Jottie, discussing how hot the weather is.

Rating:  9/10

If you'd like to keep up to date with what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads here!

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Coziness.

In an older post of mine on Thinking about Change, I started talking about my experience of coziness, and how it started to become something rather important to me. I realised as I wrote about it there that it was actually far more important to me than I had first envisaged, and so I decided to explore it a little further here. I think (hope) it is something other people can relate to - possibly mostly people with experiences of chronic illness or pain, but perhaps others too! All I know is that being cozy is something that is pretty important to me - particularly now the colder weather is here!

First of all, I realise that my interest in feeling cozy may be something to do with my background - my parents are both from England originally, and when I visited with them and my brother back in 2007, I found that I revelled in the cooler weather, and adored the winter clothes, the layers of blankets, the actually warm clothes and pyjamas. (seriously, most of the track pants/fleece pants I find here are pitifully thin - fine for Spring when you're just lazing around or doing some gentle exercise like yoga, but pitifully ill-equipped to deal with any version of Winter.) So my love of cozy was pretty much having the time of its life while I was there.

Then there's also the reason I found when I last explored this idea in writing - the one of looking after myself the best way I know how - through gentle tactile experiences and softness. It is a way for me to turn around to myself and give myself permission to rest - whether I am resting my whole self (this does have to happen sometimes), or perhaps just my physical body, or perhaps my mind. More often than not what I require is support and restful things for my physical body - to sit or lie down, warmth on the parts that hurt (or anywhere in general, as I have a hard time regulating my temperature at times), sustenance (more often than not? Tea.).

You have discovered: A Bethwyn Nest!

Despite being a little claustrophobic, I also don't mind being surrounded by pillows and blankets, creating my own nook or nest. (My name for this changes depending on the mood I am: sometimes it's nest, sometimes nook, sometimes den...) I think I manage to avoid feeling trapped in that situation because it is something that I can escape from at any time, and it is often something created for me (sometimes by me) in an environment of love and care, and that makes it cozy rather than frightening. I can also add to this nest by carefully making myself a pot of tea to drink through, or gathering some favourite soft toys around me (the Disney Tsum Tsums I own are fast favourites), or coaxing Bronte up for some cuddles.

Item acquired: Bronte Cuddles.

Coziness is also something I experience as kind of a construct rather than anything physical - some books give me that cozy feeling, some tv series make me feel comfortable and snug. Movies are also another thing that can bring that coziness, and even games! It becomes more of a sensation or emotion then, rather than a physical state, and it is really hard for me to explain what I mean. It's like picking up a favourite book that you know well - Harry Potter might be a good example - and when you start reading it you just feel loved and safe and 'home'. It it like your brain is getting a bit of a hug, but in a gentle way.

Some of the things that conjure this sensation within me include:

• Matilda by Roald Dahl - book and movie
• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - book and sometimes movie
• Bridget Jones' Diary - mostly the two movies
• Any books about reading, like Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree
• The Friends tv series
• Castle, but just seasons one to four, and I can be very selective about which ones I want to watch...
• The Aristocats - my childhood movie of love
• Cardcaptor Sakura - series, movies, manga, you name it.
• Pride and Prejudice! The BBC series and book, of course. Also, in the Jane Austen theme, Sense and Sensibility - book and Emma Thompson movie
• ...and, of course, most things by J. K. Rowling. Even her crime books written as Robert Galbraith conjure comfort for me, in a strange way.

What about you? What makes you feel cozy and safe? Love to all who read.

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Reading Plans June 2015

Since my experiment last month paid off so well, I thought I would give this another shot! Basically I will choose a few books off my shelf that have so far gone unread, and I will assign them to myself as required reading for the month. I think I will stick with the structure I put in place last month - two definites, and then any past that are just hopeful extras. These will be read in addition to any review reading or general reading I might like to do otherwise - in an effort to reduce my TBR one book at a time.

Here are the books for June:

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

This was a gift from some friends on one of my birthdays years ago and I still have yet to read it - which is as much of a shock to me as it might be to those who know me, and know how much I love Murakami's work. It is so delightfully weird. I had thought about trying to finish the mammoth of 1Q84 this month, but every time I try that book it just slowly beats me into the ground - it is my Everest. One day. For now, I would really like to read this one!

South of the Border, West of the Sun has an average star rating of 3.86 on goodreads.

To find more info, here is the goodreads link!

Under Wildwood by Colin Meloy (illustrations by Carson Ellis)

I originally bought this book in one of my favourite places in the world - Margaret River - and I bought it at the same time that I bought book one. And yet I read book one - Wildwood - and still have yet to pick this one up. I have to say that I wasn't completely in love with Wildwood - but I do think that it had promise, and I was really hoping that it would be picked up and improved upon in book two, so it is time to get to it and find out.

This trilogy is already complete, with Wildwood Imperium being the third and final book.

Under Wildwood has an average star rating of 3.90 on goodreads.

To find more info, here is the goodreads link!

And if I managed to finish those two, the next one I have added as a 'maybe-baby' option is...

Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps by Romulus Hillsborough

Okay this one might seem a bit left of field to those that don't know that I have a bit of an interest in the Shinsengumi, but let's just roll with it. I bought a copy of this years ago when I was deep in my obsession, and did try to read it then, but I was jumping around from thing to thing (as one sometimes does with reading) and found myself putting it down and then eventually putting it on my shelf, where it has languished for some time. I would really like to get this one read, as I believe that there are more opportunities now for researching this sort of thing, and I am very interested.

Under Wildwood has an average star rating of 3.84 on goodreads.

To find more info, here is the goodreads link!

If you would like to follow my progress on goodreads, please do find me here. I hope I have another good reading month!

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May 2015 Reading Plans - Result

Okay, I assigned myself three books off of my shelf to get through in May - aside from my normal reading - and it has been a success! I read all three during the course of the month. And they were all quite good! It seems that my purchasing of books is actually not too ill-considered at times.
Anyway, I thought that I would list the books below and give a little mini-review of my thoughts for your reading leisure! I am hoping to construct another list for June very soon, so I will put that up when it is ready.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

goodreads link

I started off my required reading with one that I have been eyeing off for some time now, and I have to admit that it actually took me a while to get into this one. I am not sure why, to be honest. I think I just wasn't really sure what was happening for a little while, and the characters seemed to have been created for the soul purpose of being confusing for a couple of chapters. But I couldn't deny that it was well-written, and by about halfway through I was absolutely hooked. The story was weird, the characters were kooky and dark, and I loved every bit of it. I am quite prepared to jump on the Victoria Schwab bandwagon now, and would like to read all the other things by her, please.

Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci

goodreads link

I actually had a few sleepless nights during May and on one of those nights decided to get out of bed, settle into my reading chair, and read my cares away for a while - I wasn't doing much sleeping anyway! During that night I finished Vicious and made a decent start on Tin Star and, since it was actually quite short, ended up finishing it later that day. (I also finished an ebook that day, too. It was a good reading day really.)
Tin Star is definitely a different read to your typical YA - and I would probably class it as YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy. The main character, Tula, is actually a very distant and cold narrator, but I felt so much of what she felt, and the character creation was just amazing. Castellucci did an amazing job of making me care about many different alien life-forms, and she also made me see the bizarreness of humans, which was amazing. I will definitely be picking up the sequel to this book as soon as I can get my hands on it.

Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly

goodreads link

I started Deep Blue shortly after finishing Tin Star, but actually put it down for a little while during the month, and didn't pick it back up again until the end. This wasn't because it wasn't good - I actually thought the world-building was amazing and very enjoyable. The characters were interesting and served their purpose, but I actually felt that they fell flat for me occasionally - it felt like a few stereotypical YA characters had been rinsed off, transformed into mermaids and mermen, and then sent into this book to do what needed to be done. I would have appreciated a little more depth to some of the characters, and I actually felt like some of the characters are just thrown at you and you need to just accept that they are now integral to the story and all that happens within it, without really knowing them that well at all. Perhaps more back stories will be explored in the second book, and I may pick that up just to see, but I may take a break for a while first.

And that's all the books I assigned myself for May! I am actually pretty pleased at how well this experiment went, and so I am excited about doing it again for June. I will try and have my Reading Plans for June post up tomorrow so you can see what I am up to! Maybe if I get enough interest from readers I will start posting a poll of a few books I own that you can vote on, and then one that wins the most votes will be read - what do you think? Let me know if you would like to see that in future posts!

Love to all who read.

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{2015} May Reading

Books bought/received:
~ Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search bind-up by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzco, and Gurihiru
~ Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling #14) by Nalini Singh (review)
~ Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das
~ The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
~ A Table in the Orchard by Michelle Crawford

Books read:
~ Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search bind-up by Gene Luen Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzco, and Gurihiru
~ Vicious by V.E. Schwab
~ 12 Books You Can't Miss at Bookcon 2015
~ Tin Star (Tin Star #1) by Cecil Castellucci
~ A Trifle Dead (Cafe La Femme #1) by Livia Day
~ Exquisite Corpse by Penelope Bagieu
~ The Catalyst by Helena Coggan
~ The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh
~ Animal Farm by George Orwell
~ Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga #1) by Jennifer Donnelly


Wow. Are we really almost halfway through the year? Seems ridiculous.
Anyway, this month went pretty well - I read a lot at the start of the month, and then less towards the end as uni got a bit stressful and I started to get pretty sick. Am also dealing with some personal issues, too, so that has been weighing on me. Instead of reading novels for the past few days (I mean, I am still doing that, but not to the extent that I was earlier in the month), I have been reading Kinfolk magazine and playing Professor Layton and the Lost Future on my 3DS. Satisfying.

The start of the month held free comic book day, and I was too sick at the time to go (not been a great month health-wise!), but my lovely partner Xin lovingly headed in to my favourite comic book store and picked up some free comic books for me, plus grabbed a copy of the Avatar: The Search bind-up, which was absolutely amazing and I still adore the thing. I have plans to get through the next two very soon, as I currently have them on loan from the library and they look wonderful.

Next up was Vicious, which I will cover more when I do a wrap-up post of all the things I read off of my shelf this month (this will also include Tin Star and Deep Blue, with perhaps a token mention to A Trifle Dead, as that had been sitting on my kindle for some time now...), but let me just say that I liked it and I am glad I finally got around to it (like the other books).

12 Books You Can't Miss at Bookcon 2015 was a free download on iBooks that a friend told me about, and it had a load of samples of books that were going to be featured at BEA (in America), otherwise known as Bookcon, to state the obvious. It had a few samples that I didn't read all the way through because I wasn't that interested, and one that I didn't read at all because it would have been a bit spoilery for me, but otherwise I really enjoyed the selection - even if it has increased my TBR once more.

Exquisite Corpse and The Catalyst were review books, please click the links above to find out more about what I thought. Both of these were pretty good, but didn't quite hit the mark for me unfortunately.

The Heart of Understanding... you may say from my 'books acquired' list that I have grabbed a few books on Buddhism lately, and the only thing that I can say about this is that I am in the mood. I don't count myself as a devoted Buddhist, but I probably follow Buddhism more than anything else because a lot of it makes sense to me, and I find that the teachers I have approached - either in real life or through books - have been gentle and encouraging without being demanding, which I appreciate. The Heart of Understanding is a very short book, but extremely interesting and talks about what we are made of, and a few other relatively philosophical topics. I find Thich Nhat Hanh to be such a gentle writer, slowly leading his readers to understanding without the use of force, and I love that. I will continue to read his work as often as I am able.

Finally, lets talk about Animal Farm. I am trying very hard to read some more classics this year and so I headed to my local library to grab out a big pile of them. Animal Farm gravitated to the top quite quickly, as I have had trouble reading his work before - I find that 1984 is difficult for me. I can't seem to read more than a few chapters without having my depression triggered and having to go and read something happy for a while to remind myself of the good in the world. I have no doubt that it is an important book, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't seem to read it. I had a few readings this semester by Orwell and, while one was similar to 1984 and made me feel depressed, the other (called 'Why I Write') was a wonderful read and made me wonder if I could read more of his work. And Animal Farm proved that hunch right. Granted, it is very short, but it was also interesting, and such a timeless book. I am thinking I might try Down and Out in Paris and London next.

And that was May! Geez, it feels like it was simultaneously long and way too short. Oh well. Onto June!

What are you reading at the moment?

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