[Lesley] Not sure if it’s cheating to include three books in one review, but I read these fairly close together and they definitely reminded me of each other in some ways.
I tend to like books that relate a project someone takes on, or a challenge they set for themselves, or new skills (or new whatever) they have set a goal to learn – with a deadline. Basically the genre: change your life in X days. But – I don’t like the ones that seem too good to be true, or that send the message if you just do everything exactly as that person did, you will be successful and happy for the rest of your life. I want the people writing these books to be honest, funny, self-deprecating, and to have the same obstacles most of us face (money, time, space, no personal trainer or full time domestic staff, etc.).
If you like this kind of thing too, you might be interested in one of these titles:
I loved the quirky “projects” each of these books details, mainly because the people involved were funny, real, and not shy about either their “wins” or their failures. I don’t read these books because I plan to try any of what they describe myself – but more as memoirs of just one piece of someone’s life.
I read Year of No Clutter and No Cheating, No Dying in print, and listened to The Marriage Test. I loved the audiobook which mirrored the book’s alternating voices/perspectives with two readers, a woman and a man. It made me feel like I was actually listening to the authors talk conversationally about their experiences – kind of like a Story Corps recording. Initially when I checked out No Cheating, No Dying I thought it might be too similar to The Marriage Test; but the voices were so different, and the authors at different parts of their lives and relationships that it wasn’t repetitive at all. In fact, it was more interesting to have the two stories on a wider spectrum.
Know of any other books of this type that I should put on my “to-read” list? Let me know! librarydirector@wigginml.org
