I’m having to use my GoodReads tracker to recall what I read in March. I’m going to tell you first about my favourite reads from last month. First up, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Vergehese was my third subscription book from Mr B’s Emporium and it did not disappoint. A weaving tale with the running thread of water and how it connects and destroys a family. Set in Kerala from the start of the 20^th century and spanning some 80 years or so, this book, though peppered with tragedy, is so full of love and heart. As I read, it always felt like there was hope in the gloom, and the backwaters of Kerala in those days were not immune to gloom. For me the characters at the centre of the story were whole and came off the page. The setting too was so strong and well-depicted that I was transposed into the story. It’s over 700 pages of beautiful story telling, so quite an investment of time, but it was a 5* from me.

I had a further trawl of my unread kindle books. Heather Morris’ book, Cilke’s Journey, is the second of her trilogy on shattered lives from World War II. Cilke is known to Laszlo, the Tattooist of Auschwitz, and when Morris was conducting her research, heard of Cilke and dug further into her story. As her concentration camp was liberated by the Soviets as the war was in its final days, Cilke is debriefed by Soviet intelligence and found to have been a Nazi collaborator while inside the prison. Her crime: being 16, attractive and an ideal target for the unwanted attentions of the camp commandant. She was kept apart from the other prisoners, in a place where the officer could more easily make his use of her, which happened to be in the holding cabin for those shortly to be sent to the death in the gas chambers. Though Cilke did her best to give those prisoners dignity in their last days, the Soviets took this to be assisting the enemy, and sentenced her to 15 years hard labour in a gulag in Siberia. Cilke’s Journey takes us to the harsh wilds of her camp and her struggle each day to keep her life and her dignity, without giving up her integrity. Cilke is a survivor but is very nearly broken by her second unjust imprisonment at the hands of tyrannical regimes. The book is based on a true story, but fictionalised to fill in the gaps and imagine the experience that Cilke must have lived. Another excellent and compelling 5* read.

Also in the kindle trawl, I found Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I had no idea what to expect from this children’s book of his. It was quite a creepy, chilling story. Coraline lives in the middle floor flat of an old house in London with her dull parents. On the lookout for adventure, Coraline investigates what’s behind the mysterious door in the lounge behind which is a brick wall. Only this time she opens it, the wall is gone and a dark corridor beckons. At the other end of the corridor, a flat just like hers but in a very different world. Her parents look the same but there’s something quite odd about them. For starters, they don’t have eyes, instead black buttons fill the hollows. And they seem much more keen on spending time with her, begging her to stay. Coraline has to find her way back to her own world, but she also has to find her real parents. I enjoyed this but I did wonder how kids get on with it. It would have left me afraid of my own shadow as a child. But I asked my niece (11, not an avid reader but I keep encouraging) and she had read it and thought it was a bit spooky but she seemed non-plussed. So it’s just me that’s a scaredy-cat. A 4* from me.

After listening to a couple of books on Audible last month, I continued the trend reading another from my dusty library. Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown was recommended to me when I was trying to figure out some emotional stuff. The idea behind the book is that we are pretty bad at identifying the crux of what we are feeling beyond happy, sad, angry etc. This book runs through all of the possible feelings you might ever feel, whether positive, negative or neutral, so that by naming that emotion, you can respond to it in the way that is most helpful for you. It was quite an eye opener, also in how I thought I understood the descriptors, but didn’t really have it nailed. I’m in a good place at the moment (except that I’m a little irritated by my dog who has been whining for her supper for the last hour, an hour too early) but I hope that next time I am experiencing difficult times, I can better grasp exactly what it is I am experiencing and feeling to better understand and get me back on track.

My Audible library is also home to another Brene Brown book, Dare to Lead. This one expands on her ideas about having courageous conversations (“rumbles” to coin her phrase) but this time in an organisational context. I’ve spent the last 6 months outside of an organisation, so it would probably have been better having read this book some years ago, but it nonetheless covered some good learnings. Be honest and clear when giving feedback, and don’t shy away from saying what needs to be said. But make the other person heard, watch for their response and give space when something is better digested before dissecting further. The same applies when you are on the receiving end. If you need time to process something, ask for space, reflect, avoid the immediate urge to defend, explore if you are telling yourself the real story or if there could be another way of looking at something, don’t hide your vulnerabilities from others. These are probably not so different from those around you.

March was quite the self-help audio book month. Last on the Audible list was Why Did Nobody Tell Me This Before by Julie Smith. Smith is a psychologist with a strong social media presence. She had made a bunch of bitesize videos about dealing with difficult moments. Eventually, she turned these into a book. I also have the hardback, which a kind friend sent my way and it was good to have the paper reference alongside the audio book. Practical tips and solid insight. Smith herself recommends not waiting until the low times before reading the book, so that you can already have the knowledge to put up a ladder for yourself and climb out.

Back to the fiction, and the second subscription book from Mr B’s Emporium. It was delivered in February but I was already invested in Demon Copperhead so couldn’t make a start on another 500+ page book until that was done. This is at heart a spy book, but Max Archer is just an associate professor of history, studying intelligence and spymasters of the cold war. A mysterious invitation to meet with a former MI-5 officer, the legend Scarlett King, draws Max into the murky world and he finds himself having to master espionage tricks fast. I have not read too many spy thrillers, so for me this was an interesting education in the Cambridge Five as well as key Soviet defectors and double agents who are referenced in the book (yes, I had to Google them to see if they were real). And the story had enough pull to easily bring me through those 500 pages. 4* from me.

At the bottom of the rankings for the month was a bit of a disappointing book from Ann Patchett. I was spurred to read this by one of my book clubs reading Bel Canto, which I thoroughly enjoyed years ago. Not being much of a re-reader, this was the perfect opportunity to read Commonwealth, recently sent my way by my sister. A story of a blended family of two families brought together by divorce and remarriage, and told from the point of view of different parents and siblings. It’s about the said but also the unsaid, the secrets, the alliances. For me, this just lacked narrative drive but it was clearly well written which carried me to its end. 3* from me.

And that wraps up March. It won’t be long before I’m debriefing on Apri but that is looking like a short update. Where has all my reading time disappeared to?

This month I finally finished a book that I’d borrowed from Libby the e-library. Lost Property by Helen Paris was a charming tale of a woman working in the Transport for London lost property office. Among the numerous umbrellas, single gloves, and more obscure items was one rather lost woman, herself needing to be found. I enjoyed it but it lacked a bit of pace. Almost running out of steam, I persevered and was rewarded with a good second half.

I then did a bit of Netgalley shelf decluttering by reading the last two books that I had been given access to in exchange for an honest review. The first of these was a detective novel, the second in the series by Kate Webb and you can see my review here. If you are a crime fiction fan this series might be worth investigating.

The last book on my Netgalley shelf was Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. I was given access to the audiobook by Netgalley but I wasn’t in a place to listen. Handily, the book became available from the Libby e-library so I read it instead. It is only a short book and its writing is spare but emotive. I zipped through it in a busy weekend and took every possible moment to dip in and read it. The story is about Takako who suffers a nasty break up which leaves her at rock bottom. Her uncle, the owner of the Morisaki Bookshop, helps Takako get back on her feet by letting her stay in the rooms above the shop in exchange for helping in the store. Takako goes along with the arrangement, but she has no interest in the dusty books and spends most of her free time sleeping to escape her own reality. But the lure of the stories and adventures between the covers eventually draw her in and bring her out of her funk. This isn’t a new book but it has recently been translated and relaunched.   

Another bit of clutter clearing was finally finishing off a self-help book that I’d started a very long time ago (hmmm, I feel like there is some sort of deeper meaning here that I didn’t get the chance to finish it sooner…). The book was Dr Rangan Chatterji’s The Four Pillar Plan, which was an interesting look at how to focus on four key elements of keeping a healthy body and mind: relax, eat, move, sleep. I would say this could be a good one to read in January as the inevitable resolutions to do and be better kick in. The book was packed with short and simple changes to implement that could have big impacts. My favourite was one of the relax tip: me-time everyday, which of course I devote to reading!

For the last week and a half or so, I have been more fervent in ploughing my way through A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. At the start of last year, I decided that I would finally read the might tome. At over 1200 pages, I figured by reading just 100 pages a month I could tackle it in the year. But after a solid start, I fizzled out after just 200+ pages read. This is a very detailed saga about four interlinked Indian families in the early 1950s. The still bubbling political turmoil post-Partition weaves through the daily lives of shoemakers, lawyers, traders and politicians and their children. The main thread of the book is the quest to find Lata Mehra a suitable boy to marry. She has her own ideas but social hierarchy, religion and a meddling mother make it a confusing journey for Lata. I have three more days to be one year late with reading this. With just over 200 pages left to go it remains to be seen whether a suitable boy can be found.

It hasn’t been all clutter clearing this month. After meeting up with a friend for a catch up and book exchange last month, I was able to dive into one of this year’s most talked about novels, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. This one was on my list of 2024 reads but I couldn’t wait once I was in possession of my loan copy. A story of two friends, Sam and Sadie, who find each other through playing computer games and, years later, who come together again and create their own hit game. The story is accessible to gamers and non-gamers alike. I’d put myself in the latter category but after reading this I had a strong desire to play the game that Sam and Sadie create.

What will be my first book of 2024? I have a couple on my shelf which are jumping out to be read but another friend recommended to me Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, so I think think this will get the honour. Conveniently I also have an electronic copy on loan from Libby, so I will be able to read this is paper during the day and on my Kindle in the darkness.

Here’s to a happy new book year and may 2024 bring you a box of reading delights!

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.” — William Butler Yeats

20 August 2016 is the day everything changed. The day didn’t start well but over the course of the morning, the plates shifted. I dusted off a book that had been sitting on my shelf for 6 months and started reading it. And pretty soon wondered why I hadn’t picked it up sooner.

The book was Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before, a layman’s journey into habits and how to change them. I’d tried books on habits before, dry tomes on the amount of time it takes to fix a habit but nothing about how to really make a start in the first place. Gretchen’s approach is first about knowing who you are and how you respond to inner and outer expectations. She includes a test which you can take to see which category you fall into: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger and Rebel. I didn’t really need to take the test to discover that I am an Obliger: good at meeting outer expectations (those other people put on me) but not good at meeting inner expectations (those goals that I make for myself). Understanding this better meant that I could think better about how to make new habits so that I can adapt my surroundings to best suit me.

One of the things that I had been struggling with for a while, and which had started to really get me down, was my approach to exercise and eating healthily. All good habits that I had picked up in 2009 The Year That I Was Thin had been forgotten (or ignored) and I was turning into a sofa-dwelling slug. This was an area in which I wanted to turn things around. Here are some nuggets of Gretchen’s (sometimes borrowed) wisdom which helped me relocate my mojo.

#1 “Decide Then Don’t Decide”
This pearl of wisdom boils down to this: once you have made a decision to do something, follow through and stop wasting energy trying to renegotiate with yourself when it comes to executing the action. Just do it, no discussion. I decided to do 30 minutes of some sort of exercise at 6.30am every day. And since August 2016, on most mornings, I have done just that. On just a handful of occasions I have found apparently compelling enough reasons to not do this. Some of these may have been Loopholes (more on that later). For me it was easier to decide to do a small workout each day than have the constant decision making required for doing something longer on 3 or 4 days a week. Connected to this is the idea that what we do everyday matters more than what we do once in a while. I wanted to put exercise back into my day as an Important Thing. I love getting my daily dose of endorphins. Similarly, I decided to cut out eating rubbish snacks at work. The office is filled with free biscuits, chocolates and cakes for birthdays, and it’s always someone’s birthday! It’s much easier to say no once and then abstain than to decide each time the opportunity arises.

#2 “Everything Counts”
This nugget ties in to one of the Loopholes that Gretchen describes where we (falsely) come up with some sort of rationale for not following through on our habits, for example the Loophole of This Doesn’t Count. “It’s weekend/holidays/I’m ill so this doesn’t count”, “Just this one thing won’t make a difference”. But it all counts. Everything we do adds up. A big pile of small stones is still a big pile. So the one chocolate, the one biscuit, the fact that it is Friday, it all matters. Everything Counts.

#3 “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”
Being paralysed into inaction by a desire for perfection is clearly a fundamentally worse position to be in than actually doing the something albeit imperfectly. So don’t let the P-word stand in your way of making progress. As I was getting back into my gym, running and swimming activities, I was coming from a fitness level well below that at which I had previously been and it was demoralising. Gretchen has a phrase that she uses: “Accept yourself but expect more of yourself”. So I accepted the reality that I wouldn’t be achieving what I had done before and aimed to get fitter, stronger, better than my current state.

#4 “We Manage What We Monitor”
Humans are very good at under- or overestimating things. If you want to keep something under control, measure and monitor on a regular basis. I dusted off my body composition scales and started journaling my progress, and tracking my food intake so that I could see where I was slipping up.

#5 “Unclutter”
One of Gretchen’s four foundation habits (the others being Sleep, Move and Eat and Drink Right), uncluttering is for me one of the most cathartic processes I can do. Clearing my spaces clears my head. As well as physical clutter, it’s also mental clutter that sometimes needs sweeping up. I now get reminders out of my head and into my phone, I simplified my mornings by setting a routine and sticking to it: wake at 6.00, exercise at 6.15, jump in the shower at 6.45, breakfast at 7.10, clean teeth at 7.25 and leave the house at 7.30. Now it goes like clockwork.

Losing weight for my wedding was never the purpose of changing my habits. But by twist of fate, 365 days after my thunderbolt epiphany, I got married to my amazing (supportive, loved me whatever shape I was but just wished me happy) husband. I was 18kg lighter, full of confidence and most definitely happy. Another year on, two years after the Thunderbolt, I’m happy to have remained within a few pounds above or below where I was on our wedding day. This year I’ve set monthly fitness challenges for myself to keep the momentum. Losing weight is one thing, keeping it off is quite another. Or, as Gretchen would say “Keeping up is easier than catching up”.