I recently picked up an interetsing non-fiction book from the library. It’s called The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is As Necessary As Love and Sex. As you can tell from title, it explores the idea that we have to have jealousy in our human lives. This is unique from most views on jealousy since the general thought on the topic is that jealousy is a bad thing and we need to expunge it from our personalities.

The book presents theories as to why jealousy exists. These theories are mostly rooted in the science of evolution. There have been reasons over time that it made sense to be jealous in order to protect our species. A very abbreviated version of the general theory of the book is that jealousy in the past may have prevented or deterred infidelity which increased the likelihood of successful mating and therefore the reproduction of the species.

The book points to numerous examples of this over time and suggests that this jealousy is ingrained into us at a biological / evolutionary level. It’s an interesting idea. The book takes us through a scientific exploration of what jealousy is, how it manifests itself today and what conclusions we can draw about this emotion. And it reveals the idea that jealousy does have an important place in our emotional lives even though we sometimes deny its validity.

The book can get very academic at times. It cites a lot of studies and statistics which I admittedly sometimes skimmed over because they were excessive. However, it also provides some really interesting information from a scientific perspective. It also provides neat facts about jealousy in different cultures. (I laughed aloud at the description of how Samoan women have been known to approach a woman who has had an affair with her husband and to bite her on the nose to reduce her attractiveness.) Worth taking a gander at if you’re interested in human emotion and relationships.

Tags: book recommendatino, book review, books, jealousy book, kathryn vercillo, reading

I have been reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and really loving it. It’s the story of a woman who took a year off from her life to travel and self-reflect. I suppose I like it a lot because of my own desire to take a year off like this (which I mentioned yesterday in my post about going on sabbatical). But I also like it because it’s a great travel story which shows how traveling can bring us closer to ourselves. And I like it because the language and description in the book really resonate with me.

I’m taking my time reading this book so that I can really savor it. I read quickly and could’ve finished it in a day or two but I’m drawing out my time with it because I like it that much. It’s the first book I’ve liked that much in a really really long time. Since I’m not done with it yet, I don’t really want to give a full review or solid opinion on it. But I do want to share one passage that I particularly loved. It’s not the most romantic or exciting passage in the book but it’s one that so totally sums up how I think the average American deals with the problem of depression that I wanted to write it down:

“I took on my depression like it was the fight of my life, which, of course, it was. I became a student of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread its causes. What was the root of all this despair? Was it psychological? (Mom and Dad’s fault?) Was it just temporal, a “bad time” in my life? (When the divorce ends, will the depression end with it?) Was it genetic? (Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations, along with its sad bride, Alcoholism.) Was it cultural? (Is this just the fallout of a postfeminist American career girl trying to find balance in an increasingly stressful and alienating urban world?) Was it astrological? (Am I so sad because I’m a thin-skinned Cancer whose major signs are all ruled by an unstable Gemini?) Was it artist? (Don’t creative people always suffer from depression because we’re so supersensitive and special?) Was it evolutionary? (Do I carry in me the residual panic that comes afre millenia of my species’ attempting to survive in a brutal world?) Was it karmic? (Are all these spasms of grief just the consequences of bad behavior in previous lifetimes, the last obstacles before liberation?) Was it hormonal? Dietary? Philosophical? Seasonal? Environmental? Was I tapping into a uiversal yearning for God? Did I have a chemical imbalance? Or did I just need to get laid?”

What a succinct summary of the struggle with depression that intelligent people go through today!

Tags: books, depression, eat pray love, elizabeth gilbert, kathryn vercillo, Quotation, quote, reading, review, writing

Not every book here is a book that I would recommend to others. Mostly I think that that’s something that each reader should decide for themselves. These “books of the day” are just descriptions of the books that I’m reading that will hopefully give other people an idea of some books that may interest them.

One book that I didn’t like that I recently got from the library was Lust by Elfriede Jelinek. It’s the story of a woman who is living in an abusive relationship and who ends up falling in love with another man who also turns out to have some serious issues. The story itself is pretty good and the book is one that people must have liked because it was a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

So why didn’t I like it? There were two reasons:

1. It’s translated. I don’t know what the original version sounded like but the translation felt odd to me. It’s hard to describe but it reminded me a bit of Gertrude Stein who has a great style but who I find hard to read entire books of without it feeling too dense.
2. It’s violent. Some of the abuse and sexual abuse scenes in the book were just too violent for me. I must have a weak stomach or a too-vivid imagination because I didn’t want to keep reading through them.

If those things don’t bother you, you might like the book. It’s certainly unique and it does have a story to tell.

Tags: book review, books, elfriede jelinek, kathryn vercillo, lust, reading

I wish that I was a bigger fan of Jack Kerouac than I am. I’ve read a lot of biographical stuff about him and he seems like a fascinating character. I like the ideas behind his work. But for some reason I’ve just never been turned on by his writing style.

Nevertheless, I pick up books by him now and then and try to give him another chance. One of the ones that I did that with recently was Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha. I’ll be honest in saying that it didn’t capture my attention through the entire book. I have no problem putting down books that I’m not loving and that’s what I did with this one.

However, I did like this book more than some of his others and I think it’s an intriguing read for people who like Kerouac’s style and who also have an itnerest in Buddhism. It’s basically Kerouac’s version of the story of Siddhartha which is a key story that helps people understand the basics of Buddhism.

Definitely a book to consider even if I didn’t ultimately decide to finish it!

Tags: book recommendation, book review, books, buddha, kathryn vercillo, kerouac, reading, wake up

Usually if a book has a long title and subtitle then I shorten it when describing it. However, I feel like today’s book of the day is so aptly described by it’s lengthy title that it makes sense to use the whole thing:

Relax – You May Only Have a Few Minutes Left: Using the Power of Humor to Overcome Stress in Your Life and Work. 

This book is by Loretta LaRoche. In the beginning of it, she offers up ten ways that you can get outside of your own head and learn to be positive instead of negative:

1. Stop frowning; start smiling.
2. Use fun self-talk.
3. Be helpful to someone else in life.
4. Listen to yourself.
5. Be indulgent with yourself.
6. Use your creativity and imagination.
7. Unclutter your life.
8. “Tap into the universe of humor”.
9. Be different from the norm.
10. Work on tolerance and gratitude.

The book basically covers thoughts and tips related to these things. It’s one of those easy-to-read books that uses simple expression to allow you to think about your life in a more positive way. A good read if you’re looking for quick tips on being more positive in your life. Couldn’t we all use that?

Tags: book recommendation, book review, books, inspirational books, laroche, reading

I mentioned yesterday that I love checking out a lot of different art books from the library. I have also mentioned in the past that I’m really interested in altered art and collage. So it’s probably no surprise to anyone that I got a bunch of altered art books from the library recently.

3 books that I’d recommend from this bunch are:

• Altered Books Workshop by Bev Brazelton. This one covers over a dozen different techniques for doing altered book art. It’s pretty basic and good for beginners but could be helpful to established altered art artists too. Plus it has great pictures that I felt were inspiring to create my own art off of.
• Altered Art: Techniques for Creating Altered Books, Boxes, Cards & More by Terry Taylor. This one is great because it offers information about how to alter a lot of different types of objects so you can learn to repurpose many different things into art.
• Collage, Assemblage, and Altered Art: Creating Unique Images and Objects by Diane Maurer-Mathison. This emphasizes collage art which is something that I really enjoy. There are a lot of great gallery pictures here to look at for inspiration.

I’m a big fan of altered art books. Do you have any others to recommend to me?

Tags: altered art, altered art books, art books, book recommendation, book review, books, collage art, kathryn vercillo, reading

I love to check art books out of the library. They’re too pricey to buy most of the time but they’re also really inspiring so it’s great to get them for a few weeks to get a creative burst and then return them.

One of the creative books that I just checked out is called Fabric Art Workshop. It’s a really interesting book designed for people who are interested in doing art with fabric.

The book is set up in a cool style. It lists a type of fabric technique and describes what it is. Then it gives a few creative tips for how to use it. There are dozens of pages like this so you get a really good overview of all of the different techniques that you can use for creating fabric art.

Some of the techniques that are covered in this book include the use of paintstiks, monoprinting, adding sparkle with foiling, screenprinting and burning the edges of fabric. Some of the more creative techniques include “shaving cream marbling” and using unique fabrics like angelina fiber and gossamer silk.

This isn’t the easiest book to use if you’ve never worked with fabrics before (although it does have some good step-by-step tips for some of the techniques) but if you’ve done some fabric work (like quilting) in the past then it’s a great way to enhance what you already know.

Tags: art, art books, book recommendation, book review, books, creativity, kathryn vercillo, reading

It isn’t too often that I read a book and think to myself “that would make a great movie” but that’s exactly how I feel about the trilogy of books by Tim Sandlin that starts with the book Skipped Parts. I think that I felt this way because the characters in these books are so unique and the escapades they get themselves into are so funny. It’s one of those rare books that actually made me laugh out loud for how silly it was.

The first book (Skipped Parts) is the story of a teenage boy with a too-wild mother who is living in an uncomfortably small town in the Midwest. The only person who doesn’t shun him is a wild teenage girl who is a bit more mature than he is. The two kids get curious about the “skipped parts” in books and movies (the sex scenes that are insinuated but not defined) and decide to explore sex together which results in the girl getting pregnant. It sounds like a tragedy but the author finds the humor in this whole situation and puts it right on the table for you to laugh at.

The story continues in the second book of the trilogy, Sorrow Floats, which explores the life of the girl in more depth. She’s in her early twenties by this point and involved in some crazy problems with drinking, losing her child and meeting up with some schemers who are willing to take her cross country. This is another story where there’s a lot of tragedy but we as readers get to laugh at it because of the silly way that it’s presented.

And finally, the story wraps up with the third book, Social Blunders, which takes us back to the story of Sam as an adult. He has learned that his too-wild mother lied about the details surrounding his birth and he’s decided to try to find his birth father. Predictably, ridiculous shenanigans surround this attempt and provoke laughter from the reader.

The story is a simple one but the trilogy does a great job of looking at the horrors of humanity and finding the part of those horrors that are rather funny. Life is tragic; we might as well laugh at it!

Incidentally, the first book was turned into a movie (starring Drew Barrymore) but the movie turned out not to be nearly as good as I’d imagined it could be when I was reading the books.

Tags: books, grovont trilogy, kathryn vercillo, reading, reviews, skipped parts, social blunders, sorrow floats, tim sandlin

Today’s book is a book that I read quite a few years ago and then picked up again recently. I’d remembered that I enjoyed it but I couldn’t specifically remember why. The reason is that it’s a character-driven story with an interesting approach to writing – an approach that is specifically of interest to people who write for a living. The book is called Our Sometime Sister and the author is Norah Labiner.

The book is about a woman in her twenties who is writing two books at the same time. The first book is a novel. The second book is the story of her life. The two stories seem to parallel one another and the writer starts to realize that either her novel is too close to real life or her real life is too close to being a work of fiction.

Through the different approaches that the writer takes to writing these stories down, we as readers of the book get some insight into the struggles, mistakes and successes of a young first-time author. Anyone who has tried to write their own life story (as fiction or memoir) will really relate to a lot of the writing experiences in the book.

At the same time, the novel is about more than just a writer’s struggles with writing. It’s a character-driven book which uses the two stories to give us information about the childhood and development of the main character. It’s an interesting approach to learning about the person we’re reading about and one that I think works really well in the novel.

I’ve listed this book for trade over at Paperback Swaps but I like it so much that I’m thinking about keeping it!

Tags: book recommendation, book review, books, kathryn vercill, labiner, our sometime sister, paperback swaps, reading

There are some people who spend a lot of money buying books. I used to be one of those people. What I ended up with was a whole lot of books and a whole lot of debt. Although I loved some of the books that I had, I realized that I didn’t need to keep hanging on to them. And I also realized that there are a lot of places where you can get books for free.

My favorite places to get free books include:

• The library. I’m a big fan of using the public library system to do all of my learning.
• Friends. I’m really good about returning the books that I borrow in a timely manner so I have a lot of friends who feel comfortable lending me their favorite reads.
• Book swaps. I trade books online through sites like Paperback Swaps.
• Authors. I do book reviews sometimes so I’m able to get free books from the authors of certain books.

There are lots of places to get free and cheap books. Do you use them or do you prefer to buy your books new?

Tags: books, free books, kathryn vercillo, paperback swaps, reading, save money, swap books, where to get free books