Little Book of Hygge

Little Book of Hygge
by Meik Wiking
HarperCollins Publishers, 2017, 221 pages
Nonfiction


The little book of hygge : Danish secrets to happy living (pronounced Hoo-ga) is a charming and informative book about the art of happiness. Wiking is a professional in this topic (he works at a think tank called the Happiness Institute in Copenhagen) and this book is backed with many studies though his work. Hygge is loosely translated as emotional coziness, comfort, togetherness, and well-being. It's manifest in your environment, activities, food, decor, and outlook on life. Hygge is a savoring of all things delicious and comforting--a way of life the Danish have mastered.

As a seeker of coziness, happiness and learning about my own Danish roots, I was intrigued by how many aspects of hygge I already partake in. I love wools socks, cozy reading nooks, warm comfort foods, snuggling in blankets, tea, smaller intimate gatherings, candles and open fireplaces. The Danish world painted by Wiking is idyllic, and seems rather unattainable in American culture, but parts can certainly be applied in daily life for all. This book is loaded with Danish-English compound words so listening to the audiobook would be my recommendation to avoid confusion. Also try to avoid getting annoyed by his more bookish technical parts, or by how often he says the word hygge. Overall, a wonderful approach to seeking simple happiness in daily life.

LP

PS Shaina wrote a blog post about the many Scandinavian books published recently. Check it out!

You are a Badass

You are a Badass
by Jen Sincero
Running Press Book, 2013, 254 pages
Nonfiction

You are a badass : how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life is a wonderfully irreverent approach to self-help books. Sincero speaks from personal experience and gives encouragement as well as a 'slap in the face' advice. This book helps you realize through the annoying in-your-face bluntness that all the junk is your life is from YOU. Issues we all have with money, career, religion, relationships, procrastination and the self-sabotaging beliefs that go along with are debunked. There are concrete how-to's in short chapters to help you make real changes in your daily thought patterns and behaviors in order to become your best badass self.

This book is very blunt and I appreciate that forthcoming style, especially in a self-help book. I usually need a smack in the head to get myself changing and Sincero delivers this completely. It's totally in my power to change my thinking and my circumstances and this book gives some examples of how to overcome these obstacles. One of her directives is to meditate- one powerful tool that I'm familiar with, but have been severely slacking on lately. None of her approaches are revolutionary, but she has a life coach tone that helps you feel motivated. The audiobook is a good option to really feel like you're getting personal life coaching. As the title suggests, there is colorful language throughout.

LP

NRA money in Washington

One major thing that I don't understand and I really dislike about our country is the money in politics. The corruption and lies that are attached to it. I don't like that big companies can control what happens and that money is the bottom line not safety, health and prosperity. Why do so many representatives take money from the NRA? Even though these so called public servants may express sympathy for the lives lost in a mass shooting, their position of power and their livelihood is put in place by organizations that support the system of deceit and death. Why does the NRA feel like it can't just exist without shoving money on the government? Why do people take these, for lack of a better word, brides?

I'm sure my view of early America is pretty naive and idealized, however, I am confident that the founding father's are abhorred by the terrorist attacks that happen on American soil by Americans. White male Americans. I don't think it was ever intended that the right to bear arms meant you could buy as many guns as you want or use them however you choose. I don't think it meant get a permit for hunting and then go ballistic, literally, on hundreds of people at a concert. I don't think the NRA likes that people are murderous wretches with severe mental conditions but I also don't think they mind that sales of guns are up and the gun supporters have never been more sensitive about their precious weapons. I can't imagine that our founding father's thought that America's own people would become so sick that their protective measure's of certain freedoms would become the means of so much death.

I guess what I'm so confused about in my sympathetic, common sense, albeit liberal mind is why this continues. Why there is money funding the thing that needs to be stopped completely. Why there is not immediate and swift legal, judicial and executive measures taken to control guns and the gun owners. Why isn't there more action from our representatives besides a tweet about their sympathies. Why are the crazies allowed to purchase and purchase more guns? Why are assault rifles being sold at all when these are clearly weapons of mass destruction? Why do lobbyists of all sorts have so much control? Why do so many American's think that the state of America is ok, that by continuing as we are is fine? We are not fine. America needs some serious help. I think there are a lot of problems but I think the root of most of them comes back to the money in politics.

We need gun control laws

I feel numb right now. Again. Not quite as numb as when I realized Trump won the election but pretty damn numb. I can't believe the shocking level of evil that is happening in the world and in our beloved country. How many more massacres are going to happen before we have some major legal reform in gun laws?

I was in living in Centennial Colorado in the 4th grade at Willow Creek Elementary School when we heard over the PA that there had been a shooting at Columbine High School and we were to go home immediately after school. No one was supposed to walk home alone. I don't remember understanding much, but I do remember feeling the confusion and shock and dread that other people could want to harm their fellow students or teachers. I remember feeling grateful for my loving teachers and knew they would take a bullet for me if it came down to it. Each year around April my high school would have some sort of bomb or shooting threat. Sometimes real and sometimes prank. Nothing ever came of those, but I didn't like the thought of what-if? My high school was huge with an open campus and some many entries. I don't think students should have this concern in the institution where they go to learn. I don't think this should be a worry every time you go to a midnight movie premiere, or a outdoor concert, a nightclub, or anywhere for that matter.

I don't think gun control laws have as much to do with 2nd amendment rights as some would argue. If you want to hunt and you get a gun and the proper hunting permits and you can do so safely then, sure go for it. I hear there's a need to control the wildlife populations? (natural selection, circle of life can't do that I guess??) I think unless you need meat to feed you family it's a silly 'sport' but, whatever do what you want. When it comes to having a gun to protect your family and home then sure, but you better damn well know how to use it and keep it safely locked away from your children. But for heaven's sake all these mass shootings are not done in light of the right to bear arms!! Having a right to bear arms does not mean having the right to own weapons of mass destruction. Having a right to bear arms does not mean you get to shoot people if you feel like it. Having the right to bear arms does not mean you get to show up to a protest and hurt people whose belief are in opposition to your own.

These mass shootings are straight malicious evil and we need better gun protection laws. I think it's a cop out to say it's a mental illness thing that needs to be fixed. YES mental illness is a huge problem and probably a root to the problem but that is a whole other giant problem that can't be effectively helped from the national level. There needs to be major reform on mental illness at the state level. I am a big supporter of common sense gun control laws. I think there needs to be stricter background checks. There needs to be a wait period after purchase. There should be zero access to assault level weapons for any civilian, at any time. If people have them those weapons need to be confiscated immediately. Those are for military and police and not for anyone to buy. I can't understand why still after so many people have been killed why oh why are these laws not in place? Why does the NRA fund so much in our corrupt government? Why is this not a very obvious fix with strict laws? Whyyyyyyyyy? It is just so appalling that crazy deranged people can get a hold of them.  But if there is a big crack down on the public gun selling then hopefully there will be less guns around. Less access. Less death. I don't know how the black market works but shouldn't there be undercover work to rid the guns and weapons of mass destruction there too? I mean seriously let's get this under control. Let's follow our allies examples and get cracking on gun control. I want to feel safe going to a concert, a movie, or sending my children to public high school. I want some serious action but I feel like I can do very little myself.


Just a huge list of recent gun violence in the USA. Citizen shooting citizens:
Oct. 1, 2017. Las Vegas
July 7, 2016. Dallas
June 12, 2016. Orlando
Dec. 2, 2015. San Bernardino
Nov. 27, 2015. Colorado Springs
Oct. 1, 2015. Roseburg
July 16, 2015. Chattanooga
June 17, 2015. Charleston
Oct. 24, 2014. Marysville
May 23, 2014. Isla Vista
April 2, 2014. Killeen
Sept. 16, 2013. Washington, D.C.
June 7, 2013. Santa Monica
Dec. 14, 2012. Newtown
Oct. 21, 2012. Brookfield
Sept. 27, 2012. Minneapolis
Aug. 5, 2012. Oak Creek
July 20, 2012. Aurora
April 2, 2012. Oakland
Oct. 12, 2011. Seal Beach
Jan. 8, 2011. Tucson
Aug. 3, 2010. Manchester
Feb. 12, 2010. Huntsville
Nov. 5, 2009. Killeen
April 3, 2009. Binghamton
Feb. 14, 2008. DeKalb
Dec. 5, 2007. OmahaApril 16, 2007. Blacksburg

Forgotten No More: The Female Authoress Madame Germaine de Staël

Anyone heard of the great Romanticism authors Lord Byron or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? How about Romanticism painters like J.M. William Turner or Caspar David Friedrich? What about Romanticism musicians like Schubert, Liszt or Beethoven? Probably a resounding YES to all of those famous and talented men who are considered geniuses in their fields because they pushed boundaries and invented new techniques and ideas in their art. Romanticism is not about being lovey-dovey romantic at all, but more about the power and majesty of man in relation to the awe-inspiring grandeur of the natural world. To be considered a genius your artistic creations have to build off the established to produce new definitions of what is great. We should continue to give kudos to all artistic geniuses where they are due! But let’s not forget the women during the same time period who can likewise be considered and especially those who establish women characters as geniuses. 

Ever heard of the famous and talented authoress Madame Germaine de Staël? I’m not surprised if your answer is no. Napoleon Bonaparte really hated her so she was exiled from her beloved Paris, and unfortunately she was written out of the history books and out of literary anthologies (for the most part.) Her novel CORINNE, OR ITALY is one of my all time favorites so I was saddened, but not entirely shocked, to learn that the library didn’t own a copy. We now own a copy of CORINNE, OR ITALY (by Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1766-1817., published 1805)- find it here!

Madame de Staël should be remembered and read because she was an influential writer and thinker, who proved that opposition can be inspiration. After being exiled from Paris, Staël set up a renowned and thriving salon in her home at Coppet, Switzerland. This became a locus for the great philosophical minds and writers of the Romanticism movement. Staël wrote novels, poems, philosophical treatises and started a female authorship trend that continued throughout the 1800s with great female authors like George Sand, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Louisa May Alcott, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Gaskell,  Anne Radcliffe, and Christina Rossetti, to name just a few. Staël’s bestselling novel CORINNE, OR ITALY, was a subtle critique of Napoleon’s oppressive regime as he passed civil codes restricting the freedoms women previously gained during the French revolution. This novel pushed a radical proposition that a woman could be a genius on the stage, anticipating the prima donna figure, while tying in autobiographical references. This novel should be read alongside other French literature classics as she helped establish the genre and tradition of great female authors. 

(Warning! Spoilers below!)

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been dumped by someone you were head over heels for, where you thought it was totally perfect and you’d live happily ever after? Well (spoiler alert!) Corinne was dumped by Oswald. And then he chooses to marry Corinne’s much younger half-sister who couldn’t be more different than Corinne.  Completely distraught, she settles into a depressed melancholic state because of it… and then she overcomes the melancholy and helps teach and guide another talented young girl to take her place on the stage. Corinne’s voice and fire is not stolen by a small inconsequential man, but instead her voice is channeled into a matriarchal lineage of talented women. If there was ever a “how to get over a dumb man” novel, this is the ultimate classics edition. I happened to be fully immersed in Corinne studies when a similar break up happened to me and the irony was so apparent. I needed to pick myself back up and find my voice again. Staël’s work helped me be able to do so! 

I respect and revere this female author and the way she set up future women’s writing achievements. She totally was a feminist in her day! Her novel CORINNE is a classic in my book and an overall great novel. 

10 Little Things

1. Flashlight under the pillow, always! My parents would have to take away my book so that I would do my homework. I slept with a flashlight under my pillow for years so that I could sneak in a few hours of ‘fun reading’ once everyone was asleep. Always gave me a little thrill that I was rebelling and staying awake long past my official bedtime.

2. Story time! My favorite part of elementary school was story time after lunch recess- teacher read aloud... Or was it back scratch trains that we all made? I had wonderful elementary school teachers who really instilled a love of reading. I remember fondly listening to books like the PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, THE LITTLE PRINCE, HARRY POTTER, CHRONICLES OF NARNIA and many others during that after recess reading time. It was meant to calm us down after the rambunctious recess, but I truly looked forward to the stories each day.

3. Belle was my favorite disney princess, and she was given a library as a gift!! Belle really is the most literary minded of the princesses. She escapes to books and rereads her favorites. I love doing just that. She is thrilled by the gift of a library from the Beast and it really shows what kinds of things she values.

4. Scholastic book catalog orders. Before the days of Amazon, we used to order books the old fashioned way! I loved getting the overly colorful, flimsy catalogs and pouring over them in hopes of convincing my mom that I NEEDED those books. Then the shrink wrapped books would arrive at school and it was like a mini holiday. New stories, adventures and new worlds to discover!

5. In my family we never did Christmas lists. My parents didn’t want to encourage an entitled, present-oriented holiday season so we didn’t stress too much about the gift part. But one year my mom was stumped and asked what I wanted and I answered- BOOKS! So they proceeded to add to the family collection with many, many classics. Unfortunately for my siblings, and fortunately for me and the family library, my parents went a little overboard and had to start wrapping the books for the other kids to make things look more even. I was thrilled to have so many new books to read and my siblings were disenchanted by the idea of wrapped presents as they were books... books for their big sister.

6. Preppy clothes. To say I’m obsessed with J.Crew is an understatement. I am not sure what instigated the love of preppy clothes but they are my go-to style and seem like an easy option to look classy and put together. Thankfully librarian style and business casual go hand in hand with preppy clothes.

7. Organizing. I have always had a knack for having a lot of stuff but also the gift of organizing that stuff into manageable, even beautifully arranged spaces. As a kid I would love to have a full overhaul of my room, completely tearing it apart and organizing everything from my junk box, re-organizing and folding my clothes, my bookshelves, to under my bed. I started from a young age keeping my clothes in rainbow order. On numerous occasions I would actually rearrange the all the furniture in my room too. My mom would always be surprised that I could move my heavy wooden furniture but I had it down to a science and revelled in the fresh feng shui of my room. As librarians we don’t do these things per se but weeding and collection development is a great source of accomplished and focused organizing.

8. Glasses. This goes along with the preppy clothes idea. I always wanted glasses growing up. I would try on everyone’s and always try on tons whenever I was at a store with frames. My parents eyes started to change for the worse in college, and sure enough mine took a turn for the worse too. And I was thrilled! :) Glasses are not my everyday look but I love that I can have my own real ones when I want to.

9. Arthur says having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card. If you’ve seen this musical episode, you have experienced the instant stuck-in-your-head ability of this song. It’s cheesy and great, and marks a generation of kids who watched arthur, wanted to read and wanted their own library card. I was definitely a part of this group!

10. Bringing books when I travel. I am notorious for overpacking in general but I always manage to bring too many books. I anticipate that I will read or study on the plane or in the car and it never quite happens. On my study abroad to France I brought the big thick unabridged version of LES MISERABLES. I just had to finish it while living in Paris!

The Singles Game

The Singles Game
by Lauren Weisberger
Simon & Schuster, 2016. 341 pages. Fiction.

Charlie is a consistent tennis star until she suffers a horrible injury at Wimbledon, with all the world watching. Miraculously she makes a fast and complete recovery, and she really changes things to reshape herself to be a champion. She hires a new coach, typically a men's only coach, who ruthlessly trains her to be the best. This coach insists on changes on and off the court that ultimately question Charlie's desire to continue life as a pro tennis player.

As a tennis fan, and a chick-lit fiction fan, this book was a good choice. It was easy to get into and I liked the personable and relatable Charlie character. I started to really feel for her when her choices on and off the court started to negatively effect her self esteem and her family. It was a quick, yet satisfying ending as she straightens her life out again. Weisberger writes with a witty, fast paced and engaging style but her inclusion of bad language seems gratuitous. I liked this book enough that I wanted to read some of her other books too!