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Motivational Propaganda {1} Comments Off

Filed under good reads, self
Written by Annie on 6th Jan -11

“What I must do is all that concerns me,

not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.”

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.

Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.”

“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.”

“Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power, and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstaces grow,

he then becomes the rightful master of himself.”

“To put away aimlessness and weakness,

and to begin to think with purpose,

is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.”

-James Allen

—Photo by aprilzosia.



Reading Addicts, Unite + Review of “Graceling” by Kristin Cashore Comments Off

Filed under good reads, the world
Written by Annie on 4th Jan -11

I have been consuming books by the boatload lately.

Three reasons.
1. I realized (again) that I learn from books – if I want to grow, be motivated, inspired, changed, challenged, etc. – I read on a topic. And I need to grow in a lot of, er, topics.

2. I miss fiction. I’d fallen out of the lovely habit of just savoring books, enjoying the pure pleasure of story. Too much academic reading, too much nonfiction (without the good stories alongside), too much literary fiction and too few rewards. I hate a snarky read. I hate bad writing. Where is the blessed book free of both?

Well – not always true, I’m sure – but I took Gretchen Rubin‘s commendation to heart and started reading YA fiction. Delicious. I probably won’t be satiated in YA alone – the appetite is enormous – but I do find YA to be a large, interesting room full of smart, deep, well-written books. Some duds, too, sure. But plenty of good ones to choose from.
Anyhow. Oh yes, and I do read fiction as a lovely way to procrastinate on doing the (nonfiction) things I’ve been reading about and learning to do…

3. Joe got me a Kindle for Christmas.

= fall in love all ovah again
= best gift ever
= so many benefits that even an old-school, paper-infatuated, Apple-resistant gal like me can’t deny the love, the absolute and utter thrill of being able to carry a room full of books with me wherever I go. Because, despite the rigors of getting three kids under four dressed, pottied, redressed, and loaded in the car on any sort of outing, the most stressful part of leaving is still the moment I stop in the library (aka bulk storage room full of books masquerading as home office), purse in hand, and ask myself, “Which book should I take?” Now: I take them all. Oh joy, joy, joy.

Joe came home with a stack of YA fiction I’d requested from the library. I started (after much deliberation between which to start with, which nearly resulted in an ugly treadmill incident) on Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

Her first novel. Lovely. (I’ve used that word too much in this post.) The prose is striking, original, ringing, vivid. I found myself wanting to copy lines down just to savor and share later, but didn’t because I was too interested in the story for a petty exercise like NOTE TAKING (which I happen to love, truly madly deeply).

Oh, the story. Right.

You don’t really need a plot summary. There’s a heroine, who is more than she seems and a hero with similar characteristics, and a villain as well… And the characters make you like them and the world draws you in, and my only complaint is that the final “downfall of the villain” scene is almost anti-climactic. It’s like Kristin (can I call you Kristin? Is that okay?) felt like she’d ventured into a sticky mess of conflict and she’d better RESOLVE, RESOLVE NOW before things got out of hand and there was no clear way to resolution. To which I’d say: Kristin, trust yourself a little more. You wrote the whole gorgeous story, created the whole world it contains, you’re not going to get lost at the end. Take your time.

Maybe it was getting close to her deadline.

At any rate, despite that single complaint, the book is a gem. Poetry-like prose, “I-like-you-will-you-be-my-friend” characters.
Read.
Enjoy.

5/5 stars.
Image by Ginnerobot.

{Review} Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge 2

Filed under good reads
Written by Annie on 22nd May -10

I tend to avoid books when they are on the bestseller list; it’s kind of a reverse snobbishness, I guess.

So I avoided Captivating the first time around, despite the fact that I’d read The Sacred Romance (by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis) and loved it, and despite the personal recommendations I received. I can’t, thus, tell you much about how this revised-and-expanded version is better than the original.

But I can tell you that, if you are a woman this is a book worth reading. Not if-you-are-a-woman-and-a-Christian, just: if you are a woman.

Why? Not that the Christian thing doesn’t matter, but that every woman struggles on some level with the issues that the Eldredges talk about. Their philosophy and, yes, their solutions are Biblically based; for non-Christian women, I can understand that might be a turn-off. But I urge you anyway: stride through the Scripture quotations and sit still for the stories and the truths that aren’t tied up in church-speak.

And for Christian women, this book can help you step out of the easy answers so often given via church-speak and deal with the hurts it’s quite possible to hide but impossible to truly forget. The heart of this book is about remembering, about dealing with the lies that tell us to forget-about-it, quit-making-things-such-a-big-deal.

This book helps us to understand why some things are a big deal, and should be, and how we need to look at them and find out what they’re telling us. As we acknowledge, and remember who we really are, we can let go not in self-denial or resentment, but in true freedom. That’s a good read.

Details:

Captivating: Unlocking the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul. By John and Stasi Eldredge. Revised and Expanded. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2010. Purchase or get more information at the Amazon product page.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I review for BookSneeze

{Book Review} How Should a Christian Live? Teen Devotional Comments Off

Filed under good reads
Written by Annie on 13th Apr -10

5 out of 5 stars

This 12-session devotional/journal and accompanying cd is a refreshing alternative to a lot of the teen-oriented studies out there. Why? continue reading…

{DVD Review} Gigi’s Big Break by Sheila Walsh 1

Filed under good reads
Written by Annie on 25th Mar -10

4 out of 5 stars.

This 2-episode dvd is one I wouldn’t have just picked up out of a stack of children’s movies. I wasn’t much of a girly-girl, so the cover in shades of pink and the whole concept – “God’s Little Princess?” really? – weren’t really that appealing to continue reading…

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