Some of my New Year’s resolutions for 2016 were improving my writing
skills and working on my productivity issues. Therefore, I read couple of books
about these matters. Here are the ones I recommend for you in case your next
year’s resolutions are similar to mine.
The first writing book is “The Art
of Memoir” by Mary Karr. The title attracted my attention while I was
walking through Chapters bookstore during my last visit to Canada. The book
stayed on my shelves for months, before I finally decided to read it. Karr has
already three popular memoirs, and she is a writing teacher. She offers very
useful advice and tips about how to write a memoir. In addition, she provides
lot of examples from different memoirs, which allowed me to discover more
interesting books. If you are planning on writing your own memoir or someone
else’s, I highly recommend this book.
The second writing book was “Voice: The Secret
Power of Great Writing” by James Scott Bell. I remember it was recommended
to me on Amazon. I read it in one evening in summer time. I really liked it. As
the title indicates, the book is full of simple direct advice for new writers
to find their own way of writing. I highly recommend it, too.
One of the best books published this year about productivity
and self-help was “The
Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and
Energy”, by Chris Bailey. Bailey took a whole year doing nothing but diving
into different experiments for the pursuit of productivity. The results were a well-written
and informative book. It pushed me to read further about different topics. If
by any chance you plan to make your 2017 a productive year, then give this book
a chance. It is worth your time.
This book also helped me realize that what keeps me from
being a productive person is always bad habits. To learn more about the
matter, I read “The
Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. This is a famous book that provides
interesting information about how habits are created and, consequently, how
they can be stopped. So, go ahead and learn how to stop your worst habit.
Thinking about starting your own business!! or improving
your current work? Well, you can start by reading the following two books: “It's
Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be” by Paul Arden, and “Rich Dad,
Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki. Both books are written by successful
people, so there advice were based on experience.
If you like essays, then I have one more recommendation for
you: “How
to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern
Life” by Heather Havrilesky. The idea behind the book is very simple yet so
encouraging. It is a collection of letters chosen by the author of the popular advice
column Ask Polly.
This was a new experience for me. I never read such kind of books before. It
has been a while I didn't finish a book in less than 24 hours, and i did with this one.... I recommend
this book for anyone who feels bad about his/her life to see that some people
out there are having great lives but they really underestimate themselves too
much that you will feel you are a superstar of confidence. At least, that’s how
I felt after reading it…
Finally, here is a good novel I can recommend: “1984” by George Orwell.
It is a classic novel, and I can say famous enough. A close friend recommended
it, and as I highly trust his taste in books, I read it passionately. The
author is truly clever. He described a political issue in a fictional story. It
is not something to read just for fun, but to think and ponder. Even though I
hated some passages that made the novel long in vain, I still recommend it for
an evening dedicated to thinking.
One of my favorite poets is Charles Bukowski. I love the bold way he expresses his feelings and opinions. This year I read “The continual condition”. Yet, as my year was a very busy and strange one, I didn’t have the mood to read much poetry. However, by the end of the summer, I discovered an old note I wrote couple of years ago, where a nice poem was written on it. I didn’t have the poet’s name, but I could find her out easily on the Internet. It was by Anna Akhmatova; a Russian modernist poet. I started reading some of her poems and I immediately loved her. Just like Bukowski, I felt she was bold and strong, yet sensitive and sad. I read “Evening”, “Final meeting”, and other selected poems. I still believe that there is a magical charm about Russian literature.
Spread the joy of reading
Merry
No comments:
Post a Comment