‘Mindfulness for busy people’, Michael Sinclair, Josie Seydel and Emily Shaw.

What’s it about:

Self-compassion, breathing, awareness and healing. Lots of practical ways to be mindful in daily life – and also explains why you should.

What Lynn learned:

• There actually is a mindfulness book out there that isn’t awful and actually resonates with me! Woo!

• Often when we feel stressed, we are trying to be one of the ‘superheroes’ named – e.g. Work- O - Holic, saving the world with a spreadsheet! Fantastic Mr Fox – saving the world with a treadmill! Professor Squeeze – saving the world with a jam- packed diary!

• The term ‘unhooking’ from negative thoughts is useful. When you find a nice term, it’s much easier to apply in practice.

• Other people keep busy to avoid the difficult emotions too. It’s so tricky to tell what is self-help and development and what spills into Project Fix Myself.

• I’m not sure if I am brave enough to slow down to let the suffering in…. This book makes a strong case for this.

Fave quotes:

• ‘For too long we have assumed the answer to our pain is to work it out , to problem solve and to push it away’ (p. 202)

• ‘We need to offer ourselves back this gift, create a space in this world, a place to stand within it, to feel firm and strong amidst the crazy busyness and stress that we continue to bombard ourselves with’ (p. 204)

Why relevant right now:

Our brains were not designed to filter out information that doesn’t threaten our survival so we need to make time to help our minds stay well in the modern world.

Interest factor: 4.5/5

Coffee table cred: 3/5

Ignorance of external world while reading: 4/5

Book cover design: 2/5

Help the existential crisis: 5/5

‘It’s never too late; stories of people who changed the world in later life’, by Chester Morganfield.

What’s it about:

Pretty much self-explanatory from the title – people who did cool stuff later on in their lives.

What Lynn learned:

• Sometimes writing to the boss does actually work – see Barbara Beskind who wrote to IDEO to ask to help design products for the elderly. And they gave her a job!

• ·Sometimes changing the world looks like staying in a small farmhouse by yourself and surviving on 170 pounds per year, as per Hannah Hauxwell.

• The Wind in the Willows became popular due to the author (Kenneth Grahame) sending a copy to Theodore Roosevelt!

Fave quotes:

• ‘Flora was considered plain and bookish’ (p. 42).

• ‘She was also posh, making her trustworthy – in the eyes of the kind of people who ran such places in 1940s Britain’ (p. 50)

• ‘Making lists soothed Rodger when nothing else could’ (p. 52)

• (Quoting Marjory Stoneman Douglas) – ‘Be a nuisance when it counts, but don’t be a bore at any time’ (p. 127).

Why relevant right now:

I’m sure most of us feel the pressure to have everything worked out…. Sometimes we have to wait for good things (to quote a cliché).

Interest factor: 3/5

Coffee table cred: 2/5

Ignorance of external world while reading: 2/5

Book cover design: 2/5

Help the existential crisis: 2/5