Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book by Dan Harris

Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book

by Dan Harris

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF 10% HAPPIER

Too busy to meditate? Can’t turn off your brain? Curious about meditation but more comfortable in the gym? This book is for you.

You’ll also get access to guided audio meditations on the 10% Happier app, to jumpstart your practice from day one.

ABC News anchor Dan Harris used to think that meditation was for people who collect crystals, play Ultimate Frisbee, and use the word “namaste” without irony. After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to become one of meditation’s most vocal public proponents.

Here’s what he’s fixated on now: Science suggests that meditation can lower blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain, among numerous other benefits. And yet there are millions of people who want to meditate but aren’t actually practicing. What’s holding them back?

In Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver,” embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating. They rent a rock-star tour bus (whose previous occupants were Parliament Funkadelic) and travel across eighteen states, talking to scores of would-be meditators—including parents, military cadets, police officers, and even a few celebrities. They create a taxonomy of the most common issues (“I suck at this,” “I don’t have the time,” etc.) and offer up science-based life hacks to help people overcome them.

The book is filled with game-changing and deeply practical meditation instructions. Amid it all unspools the strange and hilarious story of what happens when a congenitally sarcastic, type-A journalist and a groovy Canadian mystic embark on an epic road trip into America’s neurotic underbelly, as well as their own.

What I thought: 

Pretty sure this book was written for me. Fidgety skeptic. Yep, that's me.  

It delves into the benefits of meditation (and all the excuses not to meditate) and still manages to stay grounded, rarely meandering into the lofty gray area of woo-woo stuff. And it does it with a dry, witty, irreverent humor that perfectly fits the narrative. 

I highly recommend MEDITATION FOR FIDGETY SKEPTICS for anyone even the tiniest bit interested in gaining a little more inner peace. And also for those wishing to avoid social interactions. Because, seriously, "sorry I have to meditate" is the best excuse for pretty much anything. 

Rating: **** ( 4 1/2 stars)

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RATING SCALE: 

 5* = OMFG loved it. Will read it again. Touch my book and I will cut you. 

 4* = Really good. Highly recommend. Miiiight reread. Maybe. Don't touch my book. 

 3* = Good. I liked it. Go ahead and touch it. 

 2* = Not for me, finished but struggled. Didn't connect. Here, have a book.

 1* = DNF. Couldn't do it.

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Click on the cover to link to Goodreads and leave your book recs in my comments. Oh, yeah, and find me on twitter: @ChellyPike

A DEVIL IN SCOTLAND by Suzanne Enoch

A Devil in Scotland (No Ordinary Hero #3)

by Suzanne Enoch

From Goodreads:

1806, Scotland: Wild, reckless Callum MacCreath is in no hurry to become someone’s husband. But when his responsible, steady older brother Ian announces his engagement to their childhood friend Rebecca, Callum makes a startling discovery: he wants the lovely young lass for himself. But it’s too late, and when Ian banishes him for his duplicity, he’s only too happy to leave Scotland forever…

1816: Marrying Ian was the practical, logical thing for Becca to do. But once Callum sailed away to America, she missed his rakish charm and lust for life. Now, ten years later, Becca is a widow when a much-changed Callum returns to his Scottish homeland. Will he remember their spirited, fiery connection, or does he blame her for his brother’s unexpected death? This time neither of them can deny their scorching attraction, but will their hearts be burned in the blazing heat of scandal? 

What I thought: 

I really liked the premise and the opening hooked me. I mean there's a wolf. And Scotland. And Callum MacCreath is... (insert dreamy sigh). But then the story really seemed to slow down in the middle and I wasn't as into it. The plot was very straightforward, with things neatly lined up, and it felt like the romance was resolved way before the book ended. I wanted more tension, I guess, and maybe a few more twists and turns. Overall a decent book and I liked it, but I didn't love it. But I've been favoring darker, more complicated reads of late, so maybe it's just me. 

Rating: *** (3 stars)

Anyone got any dark, or dark and twisty romances to recommend? Pretty please tell me. 

Happy reading,

Chelly

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Tithe / Valiant / Ironside by Holly Black

              

Tithe (Modern Faerie Tales #1)

by Holly Black 

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could very well mean her death.

Valiant (Modern Faerie Tales #2)

by Holly Black

When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she's trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city's labyrinthine subway system. 

But there's something eerily beguiling about Val's new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

Ironside (Modern Faerie Tales #3)

by Holly Black

In the realm of Faerie, the time has come for Roiben's coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing -- her love for Roiben. But when Kaye, drunk on faerie wine, declares herself to Roiben, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now Kaye can't see or speak to Roiben unless she can find the one thing she knows doesn't exist: a faerie who can tell a lie. 

Miserable and convinced she belongs nowhere, Kaye decides to tell her mother the truth -- that she is a changeling left in place of the human daughter stolen long ago. Her mother's shock and horror sends Kaye back to the world of Faerie to find her human counterpart and return her to Ironside. But once back in the faerie courts, Kaye finds herself a pawn in the games of Silarial, queen of the Seelie Court. Silarial wants Roiben's throne, and she will use Kaye, and any means necessary, to get it. In this game of wits and weapons, can a pixie outplay a queen? 

Holly Black spins a seductive tale at once achingly real and chillingly enchanted, set in a dangerous world where pleasure mingles with pain and nothing is exactly as it appears.

What I thought:

I'm doing one post for all of these because I devoured CRUEL PRINCE and then immediately had to read the earlier books in Holly Black's Fairie world. 

I'm obsessed. 

CRUEL PRINCE stands alone in terms of Holly Black's earlier works, but a couple of characters, Kaye and Roiben, show up in it and I needed to read their story, which starts with TITHE and ends in IRONSIDE. 

And, while I didn't love love love their story as much as Jude's story (CRUEL PRINCE), I did really really like it. I mean, it's hard to top CRUEL PRINCE. 

The second book in the Modern Faerie Tales features a different group of characters with a tie-in to Kaye and Roiben's story and I really liked it too. Overall, gritty urban fantasy with tough female protagonists and great story-telling. 

Ratings: 

TITHE  ***** (4.5 STARS)

VALIANT **** (4 STARS)

IRONSIDE **** (4.5 STARS)



Now I need all the fairie book recommendations. All of them. If you have any favorites, please place them gently into my comments. Thank you. 



Happy Reading,

Chelly