Tag: Non-Fiction

Farewell, 2016!

Farewell, 2016!

helpdesk2What a year! Thank you to everyone on Goodreads (and WordPress!) for sharing their reads and giving me a safe space to write my thoughts. I look forward to seeing what everyone gets up in 2017!

Speaking of next year, I have some big news. After almost five years as a public librarian, I am starting a new job as a news assistant at a major local newspaper. It is an incredibly bittersweet move because I absolutely loved being a librarian, but I find myself ready for new challenges and, honestly, a full time position, which was not available at the library. I will continue to read and review as much as I am able, but you may not see me on here as much as 2016.

And that’s ok. I also may change my online name to Heidi the Hippie or I may just leave the librarian moniker because, in my heart, I will always be a librarian. Now, I’ll have a slightly different Help Desk and new duties, but, it will always be a part of who I am. That’s just how it is.

May your holidays and New Year be filled with awesome new books to read. Peace and love to you all!

Heidi’s Best of 2016 (not necessarily published in 2016, but read by me this year)
Overall favorite: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Best Self Help: Every Breath You Take: How to Breathe Your Way to a Mindful Life

Funniest: How to Be Dull: Standing Out Next to Genius

Best Non-Fiction: Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners or Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Non-Fiction I Thought I Wouldn’t Like but Did: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Most Overrated: Me & Earl & the Dying Girl

Favorite Book Club Pick: The Sound of Gravel

Best Fantasy: The Golem and the Jinni or A Monster Calls

Most Disconcerting: Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days: Prisoner No. 280 in the Conciergerie

Most Polarizing: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Most Inspirational: Thank & Grow Rich: A 30-Day Experiment in Shameless Gratitude and Unabashed Joy

Best Graphic Novel: Descender, Volume 1: Tin Stars

Strong Female Role Model: Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack

Will Blow Your Mind: Zen Dogs

Best Dieting: The Taco Cleanse: The Tortilla-Based Diet Proven to Change Your Life

Best To-Be-Made-Into-A-Movie: Red Rising

Best Memoir: The Princess Diarist or Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books or You’re Never Weird on the Internet

Best Historical Fiction: The Queen of the Night

Young Adult: Tiger Lily

Horror: Alice or All Darling Children

Favorite from NetGalley: Happiness and Other Small Things of Absolute Importance

Thank you so much for reading my blog and I hope that you get the chance to enjoy some of my favorites from 2016!

Unmistakable: Why Only is Better than Best by Srinivas Rao

Unmistakable: Why Only is Better than Best by Srinivas Rao
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A call-to-action for artists and business people of all types to create the work that only they can create which makes them irreplaceable and also Unmistakable.

“When you’re the only person who could have created a work of art, the competition and standard metrics by which things are measured become irrelevant because nothing can replace you. The factors that distinguish you are so personal that nobody can replicate them.” pg 2.

That makes sense to me. You’re essentially writing the book so no one can tell you how it’s supposed to go.

The theory of becoming Unmistakable is fairly simple but the journey to that place is not. There are no maps to this realm because it is different for everyone and the paths to that place vary as widely as the talents that people bring with them.

As Srinivas reminds us: “Unmistakable work is a process of self-discovery. We start our ride not knowing what it is that makes us unmistakable, and a thread reveals itself through the creation of a body of work. Dots connect, patterns emerge, and our unmistakable gift is revealed. Time is the critical ingredient required for this to take place, hence the role of longevity and commitment in the quest to become unmistakable.” pgs 56-57

So, you can’t give up. Create and fail and try again. That is as hard and as easy as it is.

“…creating unmistakable work might be one of the hardest things to do: you have to look into the depths of who you are, explore what matters to you, and infuse that into every element of your work until it can’t possibly be mistaken for something anybody could have done but you.” pg 68.

The messages contained within Unmistakable become repetitive after a few chapters, but Srinivas threads some of the stories and artists from his podcast to break up the material as well as his personal testimony.

Unmistakable encourages creation even in areas that you may have no prior experience: “Lack of formal instruction might keep us from attempting some sort of creative pursuit or starting anything in which we don’t have experience. … When we lack experience, we also have the advantage of lacking preconceived notions of what’s possible.” pg 113.

And, you don’t know what you’re capable of until you get started. So, what are we waiting for!

As Srinivas writes from an interview with Seth Godin: “The enemy of creativity is fear; that seems pretty clear. The enemy of fear is creativity; that doesn’t seem that obvious.” The antidote to our fear is to put our heads down, do our work, and make something each day.”pg 189.

Let’s all become Unmistakable.

Some further reading: Creativity: The Perfect Crime, Do the Work, and How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery.

Thanks for reading!

The Awakening Body: Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life by Reginald Ray

The Awakening Body: Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life by Reginald Ray
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I picked up The Awakening Body because of a conversation I had with a friend last week. He said that when he sits down to meditate, that his mind won’t shut off, and it ruins the experience for him.

I gave him a technique about focusing on the space between thoughts, but decided that I needed something more concrete to give him. This book is perfect for anyone who feels like they can’t escape from his or her own mind.

The Awakening Body is a series of progressive meditations that take the practitioner out of “thinking” and into “experiencing”.

It’s as easy as focusing on your own toes: “In contrast to contrived conventional approaches that emphasize entry into the meditative state through the intentional thinking of the conscious mind… Somatic Meditation develops a meditative consciousness that is accessed through the spontaneous feelings, sensations, visceral intuitions, and felt senses of the body itself. … Put in the language of Buddhism, the human body, as such, is already and always abiding in the meditative state, the domain of awakening- and we are just trying to gain entry into that.” loc 110, ebook.

The teachings themselves are Buddhist in origin but you don’t have to be a practicing Buddhist to receive benefit from them. If you have a body, you can successfully do these meditations.

And the benefits from them could be enormous: “It is as if we are waking up, within our Soma (body consciousness), and we suddenly find ourselves in a new world. … We begin to see that what we formerly took to be our body was just a made-up version with little correspondence to anything real. We find in our body previously unimaginable vistas of spaciousness, experience arising that is ever surprising and fresh, an endless world of possibilities for ourselves and our lives.” loc 329, ebook.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

This book includes a link to access the guided meditations online so that you can completely focus on the practice as it unfolds. I am just beginning to work with these, but I am encouraged by my progress so far.

When I started, I couldn’t sense my big toes at all, which kind of freaked me out. Logically, I knew they was there, but I couldn’t feel them.

Ray says that this isn’t uncommon: “When we arrive at the first instruction, “pay attention to your big toe on each foot,” at first, practitioners may not be able to do this because, they often report, they have no feeling not only of their toes, but often of their feet, their legs, or even the lower half of their body. … “Keep trying,” I tell them. For even directing our attention to the vicinity of where we think the toes should or might be is already transforming our neurological wiring.” loc 1215, ebook.

That was a big wake up call for me. I’m so glad I picked this book up.

The last part of the book was the most challenging for me to understand because Ray begins to speak directly to those who have had experience with Somatic meditation. I read the words, but I can’t say that I grasped their meaning… yet. With time, perhaps I will.

I recommend The Awakening Body to anyone who is looking for a slightly different technique to begin or improve his or her meditation practice. Beginners to advanced practitioners will find this book useful.

Some further books to explore if you are interested in using/sensing the body in meditation: Ecstatic Body Postures: An Alternate Reality Workbook or Meditations for Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.

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

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
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Take a highly intelligent, anxiety prone girl, mix in the life changing, world wide phenomena that is Star Wars, and add a dash of handsome, introverted, and married leading man and you have: The Princess Diarist.

This is not really about Star Wars as much as it is about obsession and Carrie trying to figure out who she is.

Though there are some tidbits sprinkled throughout: “And as much as I may have joked about Star Wars over the years, I liked that I was in those films. Particularly as the only girl in an all-boy fantasy. They were fun to make. It was an anecdote of unimaginable standing.” pg 5.

Or the moment Carrie found out that she got the part: “…I laughed and dropped the phone and ran out into the front yard and into the street. … It was raining in L.A. and I was Princess Leia. I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was.” pg 31

Carrie’s not afraid to make fun of herself: “When you watch the movie, it turns out that the voice I used when I was upset was vaguely British, and my not-upset voice is less British.” pg 44.

Or confess her hopeless awkwardness around her co-star: “But one thing I knew was that Harrison made me feel very nervous. I got tongue-tied in his company, and clumsy. It was uncomfortable in the extreme, and not in any way I could over come with a few well-chosen witticisms. We met, hit a wall, and stayed there. pg 61.

I’ve known someone who had that kind of effect on me. Poor Carrie.. poor me. 🙂

Here’s an actual entry from her diary that includes a mention of George Lucas: “George says that if you look at the person someone chooses to have “a relationship” with, you’ll see what they think of themselves. So Harrison is what I think of myself. It’s hardly a relationship, but nevertheless he is a choice. … I can’t think about it anymore. It makes my head hurt.” pg 114.

The older journal entries were my favorite part, but I can see how some readers may not enjoy them. They’re written in stream of consciousness and, at one point, I think Carrie flirts with a full on psychotic break- there’s a particularly disturbing entry about a rainbow colored talking fish that you can’t miss!

After the “Carrison” portion of the book, there’s some cringe worthy moments revealed between Carrie and mega Star Wars fans. Yes, she may have become a household name, but it doesn’t seem like it was worth the price.. or was it?

All of this just makes me want to watch Episode IV again! Read The Princess Diarist if you want to touch the depths of despair in a decades old love affair or if you want some quirky details about one of the most beloved science fiction films of all time. Also recommended: Fisher’s Shockaholic in which she details her struggles with bipolar disorder.

Thanks for reading!

Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack by Jill Grunenwald

Running with a Police Escort: Tales from the Back of the Pack by Jill Grunenwald
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A Cleveland librarian chronicles the emergence of her inner road warrior. Jill was very unhealthy- tipping the scales at nearly 300 pounds when an email from her younger sister convinced her that she needs to change her ways.

Self described “slow runner”, Jill often finds herself at the end of races with organizers closing the course behind her. Thus the title of her eventual podcast and this book: Running with a Police Escort.

Jill reminded me of my younger sister, another “slow runner” who took up running for health reasons.

I have a great deal of respect for people who have the courage to make major life changes- be that taking up a sport, counting calories, or giving up meat products.

It is so easy to let life determine who you are becoming instead of taking full responsibility for your choices. Jill’s point in this memoir is that it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you go, you win if you’re making even the smallest steps towards your goals.

In this passage, she’s closing down the race, like usual: “…I happened to see one of the policemen on the street gesture to get my attention and point to the car following me. I pulled out my earbuds and from the sidewalk he called out with a supportive smile, “You must be a very important person to have a police escort!” loc 72, ebook.

Jill relates her unathletic/uncoordinated childhood and I felt a lot of sympathy for her bookworm tendencies: “While (my classmates) ran wild, I’d find a quiet corner along the brick wall of the building and bury myself in a book. My favorites were the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, the macabre illustrations haunting my dreams.” loc 162, ebook.

Photo by Ricardo Esquivel on Pexels.com

That probably would have been one of my favorites too, but my school library’s copy was always checked out. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Jill reminds the reader that people don’t get to nearly 300 pounds without a reason why- an underlying pain that they’re insulating themselves from. For Jill, it seems that she was chronically lacking in self esteem and self love.

I loved reading about her getting her mojo back: Truthfully, I didn’t even know how much I weighed because the analog scale that I owned didn’t go up that high. … I don’t know if I can verbally express what it means to be so heavy that you literally outweigh your scale’s capabilities. Like, seriously. Just think about that for a second, okay? A scale has a pretty basic function… and I had gotten so big, I put my scale out of work.” loc 312, ebook.

Running with a Police Escort is a great book for those who are struggling with their weight or the decision to become more healthy.

Jill isn’t afraid to laugh at herself and there is quite a lot of wisdom in these pages: “…it’s these simple decisions that compound as we make them every single second of every single moment of every single day. It is not the Friday nights or Saturday evenings that determine who we are and where we go: it is the Thursday afternoons or Monday mornings that mentor and counsel our being into a full-fledged sense of self.” loc 818, ebook.

Beware, there’s a bunch of swearing too. If you don’t appreciate that, you may have to find another book.

I also found it to be repetitive after the first couple of races, but it’s clear that Jill is writing from the heart and has been changed by every single mile that she’s undertaken. Share this book with others who may need encouragement because Jill is a natural cheerleader for the novice runner or athlete of any type.

Some further reading: Confessions of an Unlikely Runner: A Guide to Racing and Obstacle Courses for the Averagely Fit and Halfway Dedicated, Running Like a Girl, and Down Size: 12 Truths for Turning Pants-Splitting Frustration into Pants-Fitting Success.

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for a free advance reading copy of this book!

Thanks for reading!

After a While You Just Get Used to It: A Tale of Family Clutter by Gwendolyn Knapp

After a While You Just Get Used to It: A Tale of Family Clutter by Gwendolyn Knapp
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Sometimes poignant, other times appalling memoir by Gwendolyn (Wendy) Knapp that describes her dysfunctional family, drama filled relationships, and quest to find a job as a struggling writer in New Orleans.

The poverty level and drug addicted aunt described in After a While You Just Get Used to Itreally reminded me of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis except that instead of in Appalachia, Gwendolyn describes a childhood in Florida. I suppose that some struggles are universal.

Although I enjoyed the stories, I wanted to read more about how the family dealt with Gwendolyn’s mother’s hoarding. Anybody else binge watch episodes of A&E’s Hoarders? It’s strangely compelling.

One lady collected every single flower bouquet message card that she had ever received- a leaning tower of Pisa in miniature, just perpetually collecting dust on one of her many side tables.

Anyway, the hoarding angle isn’t what this book is really about. The focus is mainly on Gwendolyn’s coming of age and early adulthood.

Gwendolyn is slightly older than me, but I enjoyed hearing about specific details from her childhood because I remembered some of those things in mine, like: “I applied my Dr Pepper lip gloss and pulled on my deflated Nike Airs, watching Mom give John a hug before saying her world-famous line, “Well, excuse our junk.” pg 6.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix on Pexels.com

Not to brag, but I think I had a Dr Pepper lip gloss and a Mint Chocolate Chip chapstick. Those were the days…

I knew that hoarders were emotionally attached to their belongings, but what I didn’t realize is that they’re also connected to their relatives through their stuff, though it makes sense when you think about it.

This is what happened when Gwendolyn’s grandpa died: “When an old relative dies, pack rats usually take in all they can from the person’s home as if they’re adopting abandoned children. It’s their duty. Since Grandma kept all his things, her kids had to find new ways to fill their void. Pack rats build up the world around them, separating themselves with a cloak of comfort from the outside world…” pg 16

Gwendolyn’s large, extended family has a passive aggressive, sometimes overtly aggressive love/hate thing going for it.

She describes her holidays as: “It was cacophonous, ear piercing, and annoying. Don’t worry, you might warn a newcomer, some bewildered boyfriend or classmate you’d invited and would never hear from again, after a while you just get used to it. Once the first jug of wine was finished, the racist diatribes and Burl Ives impersonations reared their ugly heads like gophers in need of malleting. … It wasn’t a holiday until my mother, and everybody else for that matter, had left Grandma’s feeling victimized by their loved ones.” pgs 54-55.

Photo by Christian Diokno on Pexels.com

Reading scads of memoirs has made me truly appreciate my own family and our very low levels of dysfunction, especially considering how large we are.

Here was the moment when I thought that we were going to deal with the hoarder thing for good, but Gwendolyn records this realization and time just marches on: “Imagine your mother burying herself alive. Imagine knowing there’s nothing you can do to help her. Imagine this every day of your life.” pg 85

Recommended for readers who grew up during the late 70’s/early 80’s or for people who like to read about dysfunctional families. Some further suggestions: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (similar themes like poverty and drug addiction), Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” (struggling writer comes of age, details failed relationships), The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories (coming of age theme, but far more serious treatment than this book).

Thanks for reading!

Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days: Prisoner No. 280 in the Conciergerie by Will Bashor

Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days: Prisoner No. 280 in the Conciergerie by Will Bashor
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I thought that after the King and Queen of France were taken by the Revolutionaries that what happened went like, “You were the monarchs but now we have a Republic. Off with your heads.” and boom, it was done.

How wrong I was.

Did you know, that both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were given very brief public “trials”? Did you know that Marie Antoinette languished in a prison for weeks after her husband was executed?

Did you know that the bodies of both former monarchs were dumped in unmarked graves?

Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days taught me so much about this horrific period of French history.

At times, especially during the actual transcripts of the Queen’s trial, the story dragged, but for the most part, this was a fascinating study of the last days of a much maligned monarch.

“Generations of authors have reveled in reliving the queen’s reign amid the splendors of the court of Versailles and the Petit Trianon, but few have ever found the space (or perhaps the courage) in their voluminous biographies to narrate her final imprisonment in a fetid dungeon cell at the Conciergerie.” loc 198, ebook.

I am a huge fan of historical fiction and I had never heard a whisper about this. Many thanks to Bashor for filling that gap!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The King promised his family to say goodbye before he was taken to the guillotine but he never went to them. Can you imagine the heartbreak?

“Say to the queen, my dear children, and my sister,” he continued, “that I had promised to see them this morning, but that I desired to spare them the agony of such a bitter separation twice over. How much it has cost me to depart without receiving their last embraces!” loc 862 ebook.

Cruelly, Marie Antoinette was also separated from her children and her sister-in-law and transported to a different prison. As a mother myself, Marie Antoinette’s heartbreak about having her children taken from her was the hardest part of the book for me to get through.

Even though her sham 48 hour trial didn’t prove definitively that she had done anything wrong, Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death.

Here is a passage that gives the gist of the thing: “Herman: You have never ceased for one moment wanting to destroy liberty. You wanted to reign at any price and retake the throne on the cadavers of patriots. Queen: Whether it was necessary to retake the throne or not, we only desired the happiness of France. If France was happy, we were always content.” loc 1901, ebook.

Photo by Niki Nagy on Pexels.com

Back and forth it went. Accusations of wrong doing, her denial, and then more accusations. I can’t believe that they killed her after that- it’s shocking what a mob mentality can justify.

But the public absolutely hated her. “It was also true that Marie Antoinette was “ill-treated” in the French press and elsewhere. An abundant number of provocative and obscene pamphlets were distributed throughout the capital, the provinces of France, and other European capitals. They argued not only that the queen corrupted the morals of her people but that her luxurious habits were the cause of their hunger. She was even said to powder her hair with the precious flour needed for the people’s bread.” loc 2046. Ugh.

The press has always been a powerful tool to sway public opinion, but what sad results when that power is used generate hate rather than inform and educate.

Marie Antoinette was hard core to the end. She refused to take her last rites from priests who had sworn an oath to the Revolutionaries. This is what she said to the priest who demanded to hear her confession before she was led to her execution:“You are guilty,” said the priest. “Ah, sometimes careless,” said the queen. “Never guilty.” loc 3005 ebook. I may have to use that one.

Recommended for anybody who wants to know more about the last days of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette but also for those interested in what happens to a society when hatred and fear are allowed free reign. Some further reading: Abundance (excellent historical fiction about Marie Antoinette).

Thank you to NetGalley and Rowman & Littlefield Publishing for a free digital copy of this book!  And, thank you for reading.

Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg
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Though the premise was clever, Texts from Jane Eyre reads a lot like text message conversations in real life- shallow and repetitive after the first few lines.

Also, there wasn’t a synopsis included in these pages, so if you hadn’t read a classic or, if you’d read it so long ago that you’d forgotten most of it, you were out of luck.

The best of the lot was the Samuel Taylor Coleridge chapter that starts on pg 43 in which he’s on a ramble about the golden palace of Kubla Khan and then a delivery guy comes to the door and ruins his flow.

The worst was the Harry Potter chapter in which Ron and Hermione have a ‘conversation’ but Ron is written as a complete moron and she is confounded by his idiocy. Very mediocre and unworthy of either of those characters.

If you feel the need to read this one, check it out from the library. A related read if you enjoyed it: When Parents Text: So Much Said…So Little Understood.

Thanks for reading!

Get Your Sh*t Together: How to Stop Worrying About What You Should Do So You Can Finish What You Need to Do and Start Doing What You Want to Do (A No F*cks Given Guide) by Sarah Knight

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Knight is an acquired taste, but I generally enjoyed Get Your Sh*t Together. Her self help books are full of useful tips, profanity, and irreverent humor so don’t pick this title up if you’re easily offended.

If you know someone who seriously needs to get their you-know-what together, this could be the title you’ve been waiting for!

Knight keeps it real from the first page: “(This book) is more of a let-me-help-you-help-yourself-help book, with “me” here to “help” when your “self” gets in the way. Let’s face it- if you could help yourself, you’d have done it by now, right? Also, unlike many traditional self-help authors, I am going to use the word sh*t 332 times (including several sh*tmanteaus of my own invention), so please do not go on Amazon saying you were expecting sunshine and kittens and got sh*tstorms and sh*ttens.” loc 31, ebook. And so on, and so forth.

I’ve also enjoyed The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do and I felt as if Knight shared more of herself in this offering than that one.

We learn that she had/has anxiety attacks and had to pull her life together because it was falling apart. Not many self help authors display their humanity and imperfections like that and I really appreciated her honesty.

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Plus, readers get to reap the benefits of her hard won wisdom and we know it works because she got her stuff together enough to write the book.

I really like Knight’s various life philosophies, which she sprinkles throughout.

Here’s one of my favorites: “In my book- and in the Game of Life- you’re competing exclusively against yourself. Not other players, not even the computer. … Winning is getting what you want out of your time on planet Earth, whatever that entails. It could be the house, job, car, partner, or hairstyle of your dreams.” loc 502, ebook.

Be the best you that you can be and forget about the rest. Good advice.

Knight also gives a ‘nod’ to Marie Kondo’s internationally best selling title and Knight’s thoughts about it may appeal to more readers than the original material: “At this point, we’re living in a post-tidying society. … People get their tidying groove on for a few months, or even just a few weeks, and then… kinda lose the thread. … Why is that? Well, I submit that if they had their sh*t together in the first place, the tidying bug would have stuck.” loc 2547, ebook. Sound familiar to anyone?

Among the many life issues that Knight tackles, her thoughts on perfectionism struck particularly close to home for me: “When you accept that failure is an option, you move it from the realm of anxiety-inducing anticipation into a reality that you’ll deal with when (and more importantly, IF) that ever happens. Your energy is better spent on accomplishing goals in the here and now than on worrying about failure in the abstract.” loc 3049, ebook.

Recommended for people who need self help but don’t like reading self help, probably 18+ because of the language.

Sarah Knight will give you some life changing tips and along the way, you may learn some unique new uses for the word: sh*t. Some further reading: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do, The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place: The Art of Being Messy, and How to Be Dull: Standing Out Next to Genius.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for a free ARC of this book! And, thank you for reading.