I read How To Clean House While Drowning and it made me feel like I could actually manage. Like, when I listened to it, I cleaned while I listened and felt good about doing it. I want to feel good about existing like that.
Like, you know that horrible old "dumb blonde" joke where the blonde goes to get a haircut but she won't take her headphones off and the barber is getting pissed and finally he snatches them off and she falls over dead and he's so confused so he listens to her headphones and it's going "Now breathe in. Now breathe out. Now breathe in. Now breathe out."
I need the metaphorical version of that. Fiction, nonfiction, both. I need books that make me like breathing.
Some that I've liked that gave me this: a lot of Fredrik Backman but not Bear Town which I hated. Elinor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Richard Osman's books. Weirdly, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which just made me feel like everything fit and things falling apart is a cycle and always gets better. I just read Stolen, about reindeer herders, and Meet The Neighbors, both sort of had the sense of wonder that helps but were definitely not enough
Books that don't work: Becky Chambers, anything that's LitRPG, most "cozy" reads, romance (although some romantasy can be okay as long as it's heavier on the antasy than the rom), anything religious (though I'm not entirely opposed to magical thinking).
Help? Thank you.
by carrie_m730
1 Comment
I’m interested to read How to Clean House now based on your review!
For me this book was When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. It’s Buddhist so idk if that falls in your religion category. To me it felt like a life instructions manual in a time where nothing made sense.