Here we are in week 7 of the 2016 Year of Words book club! A couple quick announcements.

I. I’ve changed the name from book challenge to book club.

The reason for this is I want it to be really low key, and relaxed. Challenge feels like something you have to start, do consistently, and finish. Book club on the other hand is a fun get together with book friends. You can come and go when you want, read what you want, start with whatever word you want, and just know whatever you’re doing… if you’re reading a book… you’re doing it right. 😀

2. I’ve moved the group, and renamed it. 🙂 It’s now the Year of Words Book Club. It’s a closed group on Facebook. I initially thought I would go where the “readers” are, and then realized “everyone” is already on facebook, so it’s silly to make people jump through an extra hoop to join us. So we are now on Facebook. If you haven’t… please come and join us. It’s a great way to track your books, and chat about books and reading with other book lovers.

(I so want to call us Bookies… but it really is a word that means something totally different lol)

So… let’s get on with the book recommendations for this week’s word Gratitude. I found tons and tons of journals and personal development books for this topic, and quite a few memoirs, but it was harder finding relevant fiction. If you chose a fiction book this week, I’d love to hear what it was. Come by the book club and let us know!! I did find a few, I’ll share them below.

Book Recommendations for the Word Gratitude

Fiction:

 

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Published by Algonquin Books on December 2nd 2014
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 288
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A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.

I am reading a book off my own shelf this week for the #readmyowndamnbooks challenge… but if I finish it in time, I’m going to grab this one too. It happens to be a Kindle Unlimited book, which means I can borrow it for free!

 

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, Henning Koch
Published by Washington Square Press on May 5th 2015
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 337
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In this bestselling and “charming debut” (People) from one of Sweden’s most successful authors, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

 

The Martian by Andy Weir
Published by Broadway Books/Crown/Random House (NY) on October 28th 2014
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 387
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Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm forces his crew to evacuate the planet while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded on Mars's surface, with no way to signal Earth that he's alive. And even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone years before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, Mark won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
Armed with nothing but his ingenuity, his engineering skills--and a gallows sense of humor that proves to be his greatest source of strength--Mark embarks on a dogged quest to stay alive. But will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

 

Gratitude Journals

 

The Gratitude Habit: A 365 Day Journal and Workbook: A Tool for Creating Positive Feelings in Your Daily Life by Wendy Meg Siegel
Published by Createspace on November 12th 2012
Genres: Self Improvement
Pages: 140
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A gratitude journal and workbook that can be used in just minutes a day to help train your mind to keep things in perspective and focus on the many gifts and blessings that fill each day. The 365 journal entries are numbered so you can start recording the things you appreciate on any day of the year. If you miss one or more days, at any point, you can continue without leaving blank pages. Prompts, questions, gratitude activities and exercises are incorporated throughout the journal. The workbook aspect of this book is designed to help develop a more in-depth relationship with gratitude and to create positive feelings in your daily life.

 

The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Published by Grand Central Publishing on November 5th 1996
Pages: 160
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This beautiful companion journal to the national bestseller Simple Abundance provides women with a place to record their daily moments of gratitude while offering them insight via inspirational quotes.

 

This is the one that started it all for me… I’ve had this gratitude journal forever. If you’re looking for a good place to start, and a simple gratitude journal to start with, this one is great.

 

Buddha Doodles Gratitude Journal: Shining Your Light by Molly Hahn
Published by Mollycules on October 31st 2013
Genres: Self Improvement
Pages: 104
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Put positivity into practice! A few of the many benefits of a gratitude practice include feeling happier, less stress, better sleep, and a reduction in negative emotions. Each page has a different Buddha Doodle with space to write what you're grateful for!

 

I bought this Gratitude Journal for my daughter a while back, and ended up loving it a little more than she did. She uses it, but I’m seriously considering buying one for myself. I’ll be reviewing this book this week.

Personal Development Books

 

Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Published by Moody Publishers on January 1st 1970
Genres: Self Improvement
Pages: 240
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Gratitude is a choice. If we fail to chose it, by default we choose ingratitude. And once allowed into the heart, ingratitude does not come by itself, but with other seedy companions that only succeed in stealing joy.
Derived from a popular Revive Our Hearts radio series, Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy challenges and equips the reader to live a life of intention, a life based on thankfulness for the freedom Christ has provided and for the blessings of others.
By intentionally thanking God and others, bitterness and entitlement are replaced with joy and the humble realization of just how undeserving we really are. 
To not choose gratitude is more costly than we usually realize. When we do choose a lifestyle of heartfelt, humble gratitude, we are mindful of the benefits received from our gracious Savior and those He has placed around us, and our joy becomes full.  
Includes a bonus 30-day plan of journaling, prayer, and activities to help the reader on her path to joy

 

The Secret Gratitude Book by Rhonda Byrne
Published by Atria Books/Beyond Words on December 11th 2007
Genres: Self Improvement
Pages: 192
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Show the universe how thankful you are for everything it has given—and lay the groundwork for even more gifts—with this companion to The Secret.
The Secret is an international phenomenon that has inspired millions of people to live extraordinary lives. Now The Secret Gratitude Book provides an incredibly powerful tool to live The Secret, and to bring joy and harmony to every aspect of your life. Filled with insights and wisdom from Rhonda Byrne, this beautiful journal offers a framework for practicing the power of gratitude each day, enabling you to attract every magnificent thing you want into your life.

 

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown
Published by Hazelden on August 27th 2010
Genres: Self Improvement
Pages: 138
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Each day we face a barrage of images and messages from society and the media telling us who, what, and how we should be. We are led to believe that if we could only look perfect and lead perfect lives, we'd no longer feel inadequate. So most of us perform, please, and perfect, all the while thinking, What if I can't keep all of these balls in the air? Why isn't everyone else working harder and living up to my expectations? What will people think if I fail or give up? When can I stop proving myself?
In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown, PhD, a leading expert on shame, authenticity and belonging, shares what she's learned from a decade of research on the power of Wholehearted Living--a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.
In her ten guideposts, Brown engages our minds, hearts, and spirits as she explores how we can cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough, and to go to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am sometimes afraid, but I am also brave. And, yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable, but that doesn't change the truth that I am worthy of love and belonging.

 

This was the first book I read when I joined my local book club. What a book to start with… deep stuff to look at with new people, but it was worth it. I’ll be reviewing this book this week.

 

Memoirs:

 

The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life by Janice Kaplan
on January 1st 1970
Genres: Memoir
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In this inspiring memoir backed by cutting-edge research, Janice Kaplan spends a year living gratefully and gains a fresh outlook that transforms her marriage, family life, work, health, and everyday experience.   The Gratitude Diaries follows journalist and former Parade editor in chief Janice Kaplan as she learns to gain a positive perspective and improve her life by becoming more grateful every day. In her fresh and witty journey, Kaplan discovers that gratitude isn’t the same as happiness (which can be fragile and fleeting) but has deeper emotional roots, is longer-lasting, and is impervious to change or challenges.
Relying on both amusing personal experiences and extensive research, Kaplan discovers how gratitude can transform every aspect of life, including marriage and friendship, money and ambition, and health and fitness. She interviews dozens of experts—including doctors, neuroscientists, researchers, academics, and philosophers—and gathers extensive data from the national gratitude survey she conducted, to offer surprising findings about why gratitude changes your outlook in any situation. Through interviews with real people including celebrities like Matt Damon, Daniel Craig, and Barbra Streisand, Kaplan discovers why gratitude matters in everything from our success at work to our children’s happiness.
With warmth, humor, and vision, Janice’s journey seeks to empower readers to start thinking positively and change their lives. 

 

A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life by John Kralik
Published by Hachette Books on December 27 2011
Genres: Memoir
Pages: 236
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At age 53, John Kralik found his life at a terrible, frightening low: his small law firm was failing; he was struggling through a painful second divorce; he had grown distant from his two older children and was afraid he might lose contact with his young daughter; he was living in a tiny apartment where he froze in the winter and baked in the summer; he was 40 pounds overweight; his girlfriend had just broken up with him; and overall, his dearest life dreams--including hopes of upholding idealistic legal principles and of becoming a judge--seemed to have slipped beyond his reach.
Then, during a desperate walk in the hills on New Year's Day, John was struck by the belief that his life might become at least tolerable if, instead of focusing on what he didn't have, he could find some way to be grateful for what he had.
Inspired by a beautiful, simple note his ex-girlfriend had sent to thank him for his Christmas gift, John imagined that he might find a way to feel grateful by writing thank-you notes. To keep himself going, he set himself a goal--come what may--of writing 365 thank-you notes in the coming year.
One by one, day after day, he began to hand-write thank yous--for gifts or kindnesses he'd received from loved ones and coworkers, from past business associates and current foes, from college friends and doctors and store clerks and handymen and neighbors, and anyone, really, absolutely anyone, who'd done him a good turn, however large or small. Immediately after he'd sent his very first notes, significant and surprising benefits began to come John's way--from financial gain to true friendship, from weight loss to inner peace. While John wrote his notes, the economy collapsed, the bank across the street from his office failed, but thank-you note by thank-you note, John's whole life turned around.
A Simple Act of Gratitude is a rare memoir: its touching, immediately accessible message--and benefits--come to readers from the plainspoken storytelling of an ordinary man. Kralik sets a believable, doable example of how to live a miraculously good life. To read A Simple Act of Gratitude is to be changed

 

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Published by Random House on January 12th 2016
Genres: Memoir
Pages: 228
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At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

 

Gratitude Miles: 8000 Miles of Gratitude by Brian Shell
on November 24 2014
Genres: Memoir
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One man drives from Detroit to California and back in order to give gratitude to those people who helped him become a published author, musician, and artist after being an electrical engineer. He says “thank you” to give gratitude to many as he becomes a ghost to his past ghosts.

In order to make this trip, he had to get fired first from his job which helped him find the freedom and the money to go. It’s the grind he goes through that makes it memorable.

Also though, it’s the fact that he touches so many souls with an attitude of gratitude.

This book captures his journey much like “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

Feel his gratitude in the pages of this book and read about the shining star that helped him set sail to go in the first place.

It’s a trip that is the best of his life. It changed him. Let it change you too.

 

I’m taking a chance on this one. It’s a self published Kindle Unlimited book (so it’s free for Unlimited members). The premise sounds really good, and it’s gotten a few good reviews. If you choose to read this one, please let me know what you thought of it!

What I’m Reading This Week:

 

I did it again, I managed to find a book on my shelf so I could #readmyowndamnbooks YAY!

 

 

Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
Published by Vintage on July 29th 2008
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 384
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Liz and Sarabeth were girlhood neighbors in the suburbs of Northern California, brought as close as sisters by the suicide of Sarabeth's mother. In the decades that followed, their relationship remained a source of continuity and strength. But when Liz's adolescent daughter enters dangerous waters, the women's friendship takes a devastating turn, forcing Liz and Sarabeth to question their most deeply held beliefs about their connection. From the bestselling author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier, Songs Without Words is the gripping story of a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point.

After looking at the reviews for this book, I’m a little nervous. I don’t believe there is time in the world for “bad books” so if it takes a turn, I’m going to let it go and pick something else. 🙂

There you have it, the book recommendations for Gratitude. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve picked this week. Share your choice over in the book club. See you there.

Happy Reading!