Weekly Wrap-Up

In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values. —Gretchen Rubin

WHAT WE LOVE THIS WEEK

Gretchen Rubin. Well, we love her every week. But as tomorrow is National Ditch Your New Year's Resolutions Day (yeah, it's really a thing), we're feeling a little extra adoration for Gretchen as she swoops in to save us from ourselves once again. Better Than Before has been in our stack of books for a while now and mid-January seems likes the perfect time to move it to the top. 

Book Swaps. We may or may not be book hoarders. Marie Kondo would say there's no may about it. We can see that we're in for a bit of quibble with her as we approach the book category in our decluttering nightmare...er, mission...but throwing a party like this (or this) might make parting with some books a little less painful. Maybe.

Cozy cabins. We're dreaming of hiding away in one of these with our stack of books. And lots of hot cocoa and food of course. Yes, lots of food.

The stars aligning. As they did last week when we found ourselves in the same state as each other, along with another dear friend, and able to spend an afternoon laughing, talking, shopping, and laughing some more. And eating glorious food at Eva's Bakery. May the stars align more often.

COMING NEXT WEEK

Reports of real progress in our decluttering. Really.

A review of When Breath Becomes Air.

Our new gift guide where you'll find the perfect book for just about any occasion.

Confessions Of A Semi-Adult

I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Has it been 28 years since we were in London?  Wow.  For a minute there, I felt old.  I’ll be the first to readily admit that I’m a semi-adult.  That means I do adult things: I go to work, I pay my bills, I vote, I rein in my teenage daughter when she crosses boundaries and I even make her come home at a relatively respectable hour each night.  Gasp!  

But there’s a limit to my adulthood.  For example, what legitimate adult sends video footage to their bestie of their bedraggled, post-Christmas (more like post-apocalypse) bedroom?  The best part is Rachel sent her own shots back!  A sure sign that our friendship was shaped by the stars. When I read that Rachel couldn’t find her book club selection, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, naturally I laughed out loud.  Then I thought Attagirl.  Way to keep it real Rae! (Never mind it made me feel normal because my copy is buried in an ever-expanding, messy stack(s) of books.  It won’t require a search party to find it, but still…)

All that to say…it makes me squirm a bit that I’m reviewing The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom.  (A.) It feels a little trite this time of year, doesn’t it? And (B.) this is what responsible adults do: they wave off sugar, potentially with a scoff, because of course it’s bad for you.  Okay, that may have been an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

While I’ve exercised regularly for decades, and I have fairly healthy habits other than the Coke one, I decided it was time to sharpen the saw. I’m 13 days in, with 17 left to go, and I feel good.  The authors of The Whole30, Melissa and Dallas Hartwig, made promises to that end: “The physical benefits of the Whole30 are profound.  A full 96 percent of participants lose weight and improve their body composition without counting or restricting calories.  Also commonly reported: consistently high energy levels, better sleep, improved focus and mental clarity, a return to healthy digestive function, improved athletic performance, and a sunnier disposition.”

While I’m not ready to give the Hartwigs credit for my sunny disposition, I do feel good on this food “plan.” (It’s not a diet mind you, which accounts for so many testimonials of long-lasting success found throughout the book.) Another favorite thing about this 400-some odd pager is that it provides loads of tasty recipes to help you stay whole. If you’re looking to “reset” this bright-eyed January, I’d give the Whole30 a try.  

For the record, my inner child wants all of you to know that the next time I’m in a movie theater with my milk dud-eating Rae, I will be consuming jujyfruits with the same fervor as Elaine Benes.

Posted by Tracy

27, Palace Court's Newest Resident

Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. —Samuel Johnson

27, Palace Court has a new resident! Isn't she lovely? Twenty-eight years ago this week, Tracy and I were standing on this very doorstep (how do we not have a picture?) beginning our stay at the BYU London Centre. Now my darling niece Mariah is following in our literal footsteps. I get teary-eyed just looking at her face: brimming with excitement, not even fully comprehending how glorious this experience is going to be. And oh will it ever be glorious.

I must say number 27 has never looked better. Those flowers and topiaries! Those steps and front door! And that lovely 27 etched in glass above the door. Swoon! Makes me more lonesome than ever for that lovely abode. I'm thinking Tray and I need to visit while she's there. Maybe we should create a GoFundMe account? Sounds like a worthy cause to me. I'm sure we can all agree the world would be a better place if Tracy and I made it back to London this year.

In the meantime, I'll re-experience it all vicariously through Mariah. Her Snapchat story is my new favorite read. As I sent her off, these words from Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road came to mind:

A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he said: "Then it's there."

May you find the England you've gone looking for, Mariah, and best of all, may you find your Tracy.

Some pictures I've stolen from her Snapchat. The top left corner is a full shot of 27, Palace Court.

Some pictures I've stolen from her Snapchat. The top left corner is a full shot of 27, Palace Court.

Posted by Rachel

Be The Hero Of Your Book Club

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books. —Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Sweet Potato Peel Pie Society

I have a love/hate relationship with book clubs. Love—because what's not to love about getting together with friends who love books and consuming large quantities of treats? Hate—because I'm sometimes forced to read books I would never choose and find a polite way of saying that slogging through said book made me want to scratch my eyes out.

We care about you and your eyes, so we've compiled a list of guaranteed crowd pleasers. Throw in some edible delights and you're sure to be a star.

BEST BOOKS FOR A GREAT DISCUSSION

A Man Called Ove (see our review here)

FOR THOSE STILL DOING THE ENGLISH MAJOR THING

The Snow Child (see our review here)

The Bartender's Tale

FOR GROUPS CRAVING A LITTLE INTROSPECTION

The Gifts of Imperfection (see our review here)

My Grandfather's Blessings (see our review here)

IF BEACH READS ARE MORE YOUR STYLE

After You (of course, you must read Me Before You first - see review here)

Posted by Rachel

Words Are Her Brilliance

Maybe, I am thinking, there is something hidden like this, in all of us. A small gift from the universe waiting to be discovered.

This book is a gift. For the young, the old, and the in between—as every children's book should be. C.S. Lewis of course put it best: "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally—and often more—worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond." I don't understand people who refuse to read children's literature. Good children's literature, that is. No one should read bad children's literature, least of all children. But the good ones? Read them. And read them often. To quote another author with initials for a first name, J.K. Rowling: "The true dilemmas of childhood are the dilemmas of the whole of life…belonging and betrayal, the power of the group, and the courage it takes to be an individual."

Brown Girl Dreaming is one of the good ones. It is a memoir of childhood; a portrait of a writer as a young girl, and the stories, people, and places that shaped her. In a voice so pure and lyrical and unaffected that not once does Jacqueline Woodson betray herself as an adult—savvy young readers would never stand for that—we see her world as she did then, as a young African American growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. How different this novel would have been were it told from an adult's point of view, looking back. How infinitely better for us all that it's not.

Raised in South Carolina and later Brooklyn, New York, Woodson was torn between two completely different worlds, and never felt entirely at home in either place. In the South, kids teased her and her siblings for their northern way of talking, and its prejudices made it harder to remember that she was "as good as anybody." In the North, being a Jehovah's Witness meant following rules her friends didn't understand. But home was her family, as was her forever friend, Maria.

And words. Words become her home too. Beginning with her insatiable love of stories as a young child, to her initial struggle to read on her own, to the thrill of her first blank composition book, and finally, to her ultimate discovery that "words are [her] brilliance."

Here's an example of that brilliance:

I am not my sister.
Words from the books curl around each other
make little sense
until
I read them again
and again, the story
settling into memory. Too slow my teacher says.
Read Faster.
Too babyish, the teacher says.
Read older.
But I don't want to read faster or older or
any way else that might
make the story disappear too quickly from where
it's settling
inside my brain,
slowly becoming a part of me.
A story I will remember
long after I've read it for the second, third,
tenth, hundredth time.

I know will remember this story long after I've read it for the second, third, tenth, hundredth time.

Posted by Rachel

I'm A Snowfall Kind Of Girl

Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. —Mary Oliver

Photo courtesy of Kristen Howey

Photo courtesy of Kristen Howey

It's after midnight and my fifty-something husband is out driving around in the snow with a couple of our kids, spinning donuts in every empty parking lot he can find. This is one of the many reasons I find it easy to forgive him for not being a reader. I've stayed back to keep my sick daughter company and am content to sit and watch those big beautiful flakes quieting the world outside my in-laws' front window. I could watch this show for hours. I ask, as I do more times than I care count, how did a snow lovin girl like me end up in the desert? Following that donut-spinning husband of mine, that's how. Truth is, I'd follow that boy anywhere.

We're in Utah for my nephew’s wedding and Donut Spinner forgot his suit. He’s questioning his priorities a bit as he's pretty sure he did remember to bring every piece of ski clothing he owns. Someone's got visions of Snowbird dancing in his head. While my nephew, Gavin, would understand if he showed up to celebrate the nuptials in ski clothes, my mother most definitely would not. Looks like we’ll be doing some quick shopping in the morning, so I thought I better hop on and write this post while I have the chance. Forgive me if it’s a quick one, I’ve got a snowfall to watch.

We like to keep things positive around here, so as a general rule, you won’t find negative reviews. We’re in the business of recommending, not writing scathing critiques. That smacks of pure drudgery—for us and for you. Every once in a great while, we may feel the need to warn you about a book we find exceptionally awful. Go Set a Watchman was such a book. If you haven’t read it yet, and are thinking you might, please read this first and I’ll sleep better tonight.

I just stopped reading A Song for Issy Bradley. As I mentioned my excitement about it in an earlier post, I thought it only fair you should know. I’m already lamenting the time lost reading over a half of its three hundred or more pages, so I’ll keep this short and as sweet as I can. At the heart of this story is a Mormon family grieving a horrible loss. The writing is good and the story, while sad, is somewhat compelling at the start. A little deeper in, I began to realize this wasn't so much a story about a family dealing with devastating grief, but an author's attempt to besmirch and drastically misrepresent a religion she's left behind. What a sad waste of talent.

The good news is instead of adding to your stack of books, as we are so prone to do, we've made it easier to take one off—which means more time for Downton Abbey viewing. I feel better already, don't you?

*This is posting 24 hours later than planned. While my in-laws have a lovely home with an even lovelier view, their wifi is not so lovely. I'm happy to report that proper attire was purchased and the wedding was enjoyed by all, especially the bride and groom—who, by the way, could not be lovelier. Congratulations Gavin and Meredith!

Posted by Rachel

Picking Favorites

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all. —Henry David Thoreau

I feel you, Henry.  I like to think that I’m a down-to-earth girl, but I will readily admit that I’m a book snob.  There I said it.  Even if time was my friend, and I assure you he’s not, I wouldn’t read drivel.  Please don’t hold it against me.  After all, books can be bliss.  

Is it snooty to suggest that you should pick books like you pick friends?  In other words, be choosy.  I feel like I have some stellar credibility on this one since I picked Rachel.  (Did I find you, or you find me?)  At any rate, I make it a point to get the scoop on good reads…you know, I do my homework.  Oh, and I have my trusted recommenders.  (We’re hoping to become those for you.)

So here are some books I’ve been eyeballin’—ones I’m ready to read in 2016, come hell-o high water.

At the top of my list is Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air.  I have a good feeling about this book.  It comes from a thirty-six-year old neurosurgeon who learns that he has stage IV lung cancer.  In the same vein as The Last Lecture, the dying author focuses on what matters most in life.  Award-winning novelist Ann Patchett wrote this of When Breath Becomes Air, “Those of us who never met Paul Kalanithi will both mourn his death and benefit from his life. This is one of a handful of books I consider to be a universal donor—I would recommend it to anyone, everyone.”

Another book that’s caught my eye is Girl at War by Sara Novic.  Here’s what Amazon has in bold print when you call up Girl at War. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE AND BOOKLIST.  For readers of The Tiger’s Wife and All the Light We Cannot See comes a powerful debut novel about a girl’s coming of age—and how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war.  Amazon had me at All the Light We Cannot See.  This will be in Rachel’s birthday package come February 1st.  (Lest you think me a spoiler, just remember the hope of a good book is grand like a surprise.)

Alan Bradley, mystery writer of the charming Flavia de Luce series, said that The Sultan’s Wife is “gorgeously written” and “cost [him] two days of writing time.”  Say no more Alan.  The Sultan’s Wife is now in my Amazon cart.  The minute I have a minute and I’m ready for a sumptuous read, I’ll hit buy now with 1-click without hesitating.

Don’t worry.  You’ll be the first to find out if this trio makes the best books list.  Yeah, I got your back!

Posted by Tracy