The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just about Anyone by Diane Musho Hamilton

The Zen of You and Me takes on conflict mediation through zen philosophy. I learned a lot about managing conflict but more about myself and why, perhaps, I tend to avoid it. Hamilton is never preachy, but gently guides the reader through the dark woods of differences into the clear fields of appreciation and inclusion.

“It is a very freeing experience to suddenly realize that a difference between us is not only OK- it is stimulating and worthwhile. This realization heights our confidence to bring them out directly and openly.” loc 180.

Hamilton talks about leading classes through difficult discussions about race and privilege. The group only manages to make their way through it when one of the members expresses his desire to be heard and the others in the group allow themselves to listen.

But it isn’t easy to listen. You might be angry or otherwise triggered by what you’re listening to. Hamilton addresses that: “Threat provokes such intense sensations in our body and mind that sitting still seems wildly counter intuitive and impossible. But the first step is to learn to sit still and simply pay attention.” loc 310. Mindfulness provides the way out.

I also learned that I’m not as good a listener as I could potentially be. Hamilton provides some excellent advice for improving your skills: “Listening has a lot in common with meditation. Both involve a clear intention of bringing attention to this moment, receiving input, and letting go of the preoccupations of the self. … My first impulse was to tell her it was OK; everything would be all right. Then it occurred to me that she didn’t want to hear that. … I distinctly remember the warm sensation of letting go move through me.” loc 377.

I’ve started practicing not listening to answer but listening to listen. I surprised myself with how often my mind was racing away somewhere else as soon as another person opened her mouth. But, now that I know I do that, I can focus on changing that behavior. Thanks Diane Musho Hamilton!

I expect that now I’ll experience my loved ones in wholly new ways. “Anytime we express our real thoughts and feelings, it creates more truth and reveals a bigger perspective. And anytime someone else shares their truth with us, we should be grateful that we are given the opportunity to see and feel more than we did before. It is a privilege to feel.” loc 511. It is a privilege, isn’t it.

Hamilton talks about one of her students who set an intention to not lose her temper but was then hijacked by her emotions: “Her conditioned patterns are her suffering, like mine are mine, and yours are yours. I invited her to include them, to love them, because this practice is love.” loc 1331. So, it’s not about banging yourself into shape or forcing yourself to become something you’re not. It is more like becoming who you naturally are- which is freedom, joy, love and boundlessness.

Recommended for those who struggle with conflict within themselves or between themselves and others. The Zen of You and Me is helpful, succinct, beautiful and very zen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Shambhala Publishing for a free digital copy of this book. And thank you for reading!

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

I’m pleased to report that this series continues to improve. Cress, the third entry in The Lunar Chronicles, introduces the reader (or audio book listener) to a girl named Crescent Moon.

Cress, for short, has long tangled hair like Rapunzel. The clever parallels to the classic fairy tale continue through the story and, of course, the characters from the first two books are woven throughout.

I find that I’m invested in Cinder’s story now whereas after the first book, I was lukewarm about the whole thing. And how about that Scarlet? I think her portion of this novel nearly gave me a heart attack.

No spoilers, but one of the most fascinating new characters in this entry comes from Luna. If you’ve read it, I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. Can this new person be as kind or genuine as he/she appears to be or is it all just another glamour? Here’s hoping.

Teen angst continues in this book but it is, thankfully, hidden behind intergalactic and earth-bound chase scenes and daring missions. Small gripe here, but did literally everyone in this book have to have a love interest?

And, in case anyone is wondering, I am still Team Iko. 🙂

Recommended for readers looking for slightly different fairy tales or who enjoy young adult fantasy. I can’t say that the first two entries lived up to the hype that I’d heard, but this one was approaching it.

Thanks for reading!

Paper Princess (The Royals, #1) by Erin Watt

Wow. And my library had this shelved with the young adult. I need to tell someone…

First of all, how scandalous. From graphic sex to underage drinking, fighting, stripping- this book is wild.

I know erotica is incredibly popular. I don’t judge what people read. Really. But this one was just so… I don’t even know how to describe it. I’ll just let some of the lines speak for themselves.

“This house is an illusion. It’s polished and pretty, but the dream Callum is trying to sell is as flimsy as paper. Nothing stays shiny forever in this world.” pg 32 Hence, the title of this book.

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he rasps out. Don’t I know it. Still, I can’t let Reed see he’s gotten to me. I pull my hand away, folding the fingers into a fist. “I don’t know any other way to play it.” pg 92. Eye roll.

“My skill, if I have one, isn’t dancing. It’s my ability to believe that tomorrow can be a better day.” pg 171. Like a formerly stripper version of Scarlet from Gone with the Wind.

And finally: “When we get home, I run upstairs to add ‘the drive’ to my mental catalog of wonderful things that have happened in my life. I place it right after ‘blow job’.” pg 320 I have nothing to say.

But what could one possibly say after a literary gem like that.

No spoilers here, but who among us didn’t see the ending coming from a mile away? With all of that ‘calf touching’ by the pool, hungry eye foreshadowing and whatnot?

I am appalled that this has a YA sticker on it, more like rated X. I wonder how many 12 and 13 year olds picked this up thinking it was another The Selection.

Borrow from the library responsibly and thanks for reading!

Judge This by Chip Kidd

The beauty of TED talks books are that they’re done by experts in whatever field is being discussed. You, the reader, can trust that they know their stuff- I find it comforting. The books, based on the 18 minute presentations, are not so long so that you feel overwhelmed or bored. I find myself branching out and exploring topics that I wouldn’t normally be interested in because of their brevity. I’d never put too much thought into product design or labeling and Chip Kidd was just the guy to introduce it to me.

Take the billing on movie posters for example. I never knew that, by union contract, the names had to a certain size on the poster. Or, that there’s a clearer font that could be used for improving the clarity of the names so that they can be read from further away, but it’s never used. Who knew!

His dissection of the Diet Coke can and ad campaign was another of my favorite moments. Kidd comes off as funny as well as highly knowledgeable- one of the best combinations in my opinion.

The last, but not least, of my favorite moments was when we got to hear Kidd’s thoughts behind why and how he designed the covers for some really impressive titles like Fraud: Essays, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, or The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. Out of those three, Gulp drew my eye the most. When it first came into the library, I remember re-shelving it a couple of times, looking at its cover, and thinking “Wow, this is really different.” And not different in a bad way. It was different in a way that made me want to pick it up and add it to my mammoth to-read pile. And, apparently, that was exactly what Kidd was going for.

If you enjoy Judge This, I’d recommend Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead (Google reveals its elegant methods of internal organization) and The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (another TED talks book but about meditation instead of art design).

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads. Thanks for reading!

House of Spirits and Whispers: The True Story of a Haunted House by Annie Wilder

Annie Wilder is a very sensitive person. Almost from the moment she moves into her house, strange things start to happen. More than just creaking doors, Annie experiences full blown apparitions, strange noises in her furnace pipes, and has out-of-body encounters with turn of the century woman in period clothing.

Far from being freaked out by it all, though she is at times, Annie learns how to live with the spirits and takes pride in her haunted house.

From a young age, Annie accepted her other worldly perceptions saying: “.. a strong intuitive ability runs in my family. My mom can see and hear spirits, and both her mother and mother’s mother, who were Irish, was psychic, too.” pg 3.

It seems to me that if you grow up with these sorts of things happening around you, it isn’t too hard to carry them on into your adult life.

Not that things go entirely smoothly. When Annie realizes that something completely out of the ordinary is going on in her new digs, she freaks out a little bit.: “I needed to regain some sense of perspective and power. A weird dichotomy was developing in my relationship with my house. I loved my house in the daytime but felt terrified and powerless in it at night.” pg 27

Ghosts are a large part of her experience, but not the whole enchilada. “The house seemed super conducive to astral activity; besides seeing and hearing spirits, I started seeing lights.” pg 53. Lest you think that Annie is having a break with reality, some of her relatives stay in the house and see the same thing when she’s not even there. I wonder if she’s ever considered running a bed and breakfast.

She also has a scientifically-minded boyfriend who has strange things happen to him too: “It also meant a lot to me that Rex, with his objective, left-brain way of perceiving the world, was seeing and hearing some of the same extraordinary things that I was, and couldn’t explain them with regular science. He brought up the bumblebee as an example of something that defies the known laws of physics. Because of the size and mass of their bodies compared to the size of their wings, bumblebees should not be able to fly. But they do.” pgs 99-100. I didn’t know that.

Recommended for people who are interested in paranormal experiences, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomena, Annie Wilder introduces you to her house of spirits and whispers and it never gets too out of hand or scary. Some further recommended reading: True Tales of Ghostly Encounters or Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah.

Thanks for reading!

The Real-Life MBA: Your No-BS Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team, and Growing Your Career by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch

Jack & Suzy Welch have years of corporate experience under their belts. The Real-Life MBA is filled with some of their best practices culled from this background. Some of it I found helpful, other suggestions I didn’t enjoy as much, but I think that this may be because I’m coming from a non-profit career track rather than a cut-throat, competitive one.

Let’s get the negative out of the way first. Mr. Welch is well known for his practice of sorting his employees into tiered groups- the top 20%, the middle 70%, and the bottom 10%. If you are in the bottom 10% and you don’t improve within a certain amount of time, he promptly and tactfully assists you in finding new employment.

Now, I understand that there needs to be a balance when applying the carrot and the stick in business relationships. But, their approach just seems harsh. Welch insists that this system is more fair to the employer and employee- if you’re a bad fit, you’re not doing anyone any favors by sticking around.

On the other hand, your business will always have a bottom %10 so there will always be the shadow of that looming ax. I suppose that this could lend itself to an environment of continual growth, but I feel like it would be more motivated by fear than love. And, really, who wants that.

I liked the vision of organizational structure that was presented in Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration by Leonard Kelly. I think that creativity, trust, safe environments for occasional failures and career success go hand-in-hand. By encouraging an “ensemble” effort rather than a “team” mindset and fostering collaboration rather than a score board, I suspect that one would see just as excellent receipts with less turnover and a closer team bond.

I haven’t tested this theory though and Mr. Welch does have forty or fifty more years business experience than me, so take it with a grain of salt. But, that’s my two cents.

I liked the section on career development: It’s About You, starting on page 177. Most of it is just common sense advice, but it’s solid. Do what you love to do and don’t waste your time in a career you hate.

We spend most of our time at work so we may as well be happy when we’re there- it’s the fuel of success, etc. No big surprises, but sometimes the most useful and applicable advice isn’t surprising.

If you enjoyed The Real-Life MBA, I’d recommend Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration by Leonard Kelly to give you a slightly different viewpoint on teamwork. Also, Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock so that you can read about HR practices inside one of the most successful and employee friendly companies on the planet.

I received a free copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads program. Thanks for reading!

The Book of Tapping: Emotional Acupressure with EFT by Sophie Merle

Ok, friends, prepare yourself to go on a journey with your favorite hippie librarian into the world of EFT- emotional freedom technique.

I didn’t know what to expect from The Book of Tapping being unfamiliar with this entire method. What I found fascinated me.

What is EFT? :“The central tenet of its theory is that any discontent or disorder in our lives is the result of an imbalance in the energy that flows through our physical bodies. Its main concern is the restoration of harmony using the meridian points of Chinese acupuncture, for which EFT is an emotion-based variation.” loc 18, ebook.

“It is commonly believed in the Western World that matter and energy are entirely separate things. However, to understand how EFT works, it is important to recognize that we live in a world comprised of a single energy.” loc 81, ebook. I’m game to try anything once.

I’ve read other new age teachers, Abraham Hicks comes to mind, who teach that everything is vibration. So, to bring about great change, one need only take on a different vibration. I figured that EFT was a “tapping” version of that philosophy.

There are some huge claims made early in this book: “Some of the common problems EFT can eliminate are: Phobias. … Tragic memories. … Irresistible urges. … Difficult emotions. … Restrictive beliefs. … Illness and physical suffering.” loc 65, ebook. “Really?” I thought as I read those pages. “I’ve got to learn how to do this, like yesterday.”

So, utilizing the lessons in The Book of Tapping, yours truly practiced her first rounds of EFT. I wasn’t expecting much, if anything to happen, but the results were surprising. First of all, I noticed a lightness around my head and face. It’s hard to describe, but it was as if a real weight or wet towel dropped off of the top of my head. I was very impressed and kept at it. In successive practices, I didn’t experience that enormous lightness of the first go-round, but it still felt like an improvement over where I had been.

“Once EFT has become a habit, you can also perform tapping rounds in your imagination. All it takes is to close your eyes, concentrate on your problem, and mentally perform the sequences.” loc 564. I memorized the method and use it now at work, in the car, when my co-workers are frustrated, an angry person calls on the phone, or if I have a panicky moment. It could be that it is an excellent in-the-moment distraction from what’s going on or maybe I’m actually changing my vibration. Frankly, I don’t care why it works, I’m just telling you- it works.

Keep an open mind, readers. Saying that, I have to admit, I wouldn’t necessarily have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it first-hand. This EFT thing is for real. Sometimes, I stumble upon books that change my world-view and this is one of those books. The Book of Tapping just might be one for you too.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inner Traditions for a free digital copy of this book.

Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings by The Harvard Lampoon

The clever parts of this so-so parody of The Lord of the Rings trilogy were the character names and the map on the first two pages. The rest was repetitive and silly nonsense, but the map especially was inspired.

At the front of most science fiction or fantasy novels, the author provides a map, usually hand-drawn, of their world, the different countries, the rivers, mountains, dragon hoards, what-have-you from the story. Tolkien’s was particularly detailed and it was clear that he put a lot of time, effort and emotion into the creation of it.

The skewered version in this book of the LoTR map is hysterical. Mordor became Fordor which is, of course, right next to Tudor. Isengard becomes Eisentower and so on. Even Tolkien’s ornate compass receives a makeover with the directions north, south, east, west becoming up, down, left, right. I saw the map and I had high hopes for some big laughs.

Sadly, that never really came about. But oh, the name changes. Sam becomes Spam. Frodo becomes Frito. By far, my favorite was Legolas which was turned into Legolamb.

Listen to what happens if you bear the Great Ring for too long: “For as surely as the Ring gives power, just as surely it becomes the master! The wearer slowly changes, and never to the good. He grows mistrustful and jealous of his power as his heart hardens. He loves overmuch his strengths and develops stomach ulcers. He becomes logy and irritable, prone to neuritis, neuralgia, nagging backache, and frequent colds. Soon no one invites him to parties anymore.” pg 11. The horror!

This parody also tackles Tolkien’s frequent use of inset song lyrics. Here is one of my favorite characters Tom Bombadil, in this book, Tim Benzedrino singing: “Toke-a-lid! Smoke-a-lid! Pop the mescalino! Stash the hash! Gonna crash! Make mine methedrino! Hop a hill! Pop a pill! For Old Tim Benzedrino!” pg 21.

And actually, making one of the most curious and unexplained characters into a drugged-out hippie was kind of funny. The gag lost its charm though after the first couple lines.

If forced to pick a favorite scene, I’d have to go with when the party was attacked by a “Thesaurus” outside of the Mines of “Andrea Doria”: “The creature was about fifty feet tall, with wide lapels, long dangling participles, and a pronounced gazetteer. “Aiyee!” shouted Legolam. “A Thesaurus!” “Maim!” roared the monster. “Mutilate, mangle, crush. See HARM.” pg 68.

Anyway, rather than garnering a lot of laughs, this parody succeeded in making me want to re-read the original books. Recommended only for the super fans who must read everything that has to do with the LoTR. Otherwise, I’d give it a pass.

Thanks for reading!

The Witches of Dark Root (The Daughters of Dark Root #1) by April Aasheim

I am Maggie Maddock. Some call me a wilder – a woman with untamed magical powers. Others just call me a witch. -Goodreads

Minor spoilers ahead. Beware!

I enjoyed this magical tale of four sisters who are coming to terms with their mother’s aging, their own powers, and their hometown’s demise. It was a good introduction to what could be an interesting series.

I wish there could have been more “magic in action” sequences in this book. My favorite parts were the house exorcism and Maggie’s brief vision journey with her aunt. The day to day action was interesting in a soap opera kind of way, but I inhaled the magic/fantastical scenes.

The character interactions were believable except the part where the sisters were fighting over the same guy. Coming from a family of four sisters myself, there are unwritten codes to dating and men. There are over a billion men in the world, but you only will ever have the same sisters. If the sister wants the guy, you bow out. Period. Yes, sibling rivalry does exist, but fight over the same guy? I think not.

Also, one other complaint, the fourth sister was introduced in almost the last chapter. I know the author will probably put her in the next books in the series, but I wanted more Ruth Anne!

I would recommend this novel to people who enjoyed reading The Witch’s Daughter.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Read program. Thanks for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

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The Zen of You and Me: A Guide to Getting Along with Just about Anyone by Diane Musho Hamilton

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer

Paper Princess (The Royals, #1) by Erin Watt

Judge This by Chip Kidd

House of Spirits and Whispers: The True Story of a Haunted House by Annie Wilder

The Real-Life MBA: Your No-BS Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team, and Growing Your Career by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch

The Book of Tapping: Emotional Acupressure with EFT by Sophie Merle

Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings by The Harvard Lampoon

The Witches of Dark Root (The Daughters of Dark Root #1) by April Aasheim

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