My Book on Sale Now Through Monday!

I just wanted to let you know that my book is on sale, now through Cyber Monday, November 27. All e-book formats are on sale, and the paperback when bought through Amazon (sorry but I don't have control over pricing of the paperback through other online and in-store retailers but it is available everywhere). It makes a great gift for anyone dealing with any kind of chronic medical issues.

About the book:

"Whether you are in the early days of living with chronic illness or have been at it for years (or decades), there are always challenges in living a life framed by limitations and restrictions, where isolation is a common issue. This guide provides inspiration, advice on emotional coping, and guidance on living your best life with chronic illness from someone who’s been there. Though it seems impossible at first, your life will eventually settle into a new normal, and while that life may be different than the one you had planned, it can still be a vibrant, fulfilling life based on strong relationships, a healthy emotional state, and finding joy in every day. The emphasis in this book is on LIVING your life, not just enduring it.

From Sue Jackson, the author of the popular and award-winning blog Live with ME/CFS, comes a book to help you live your best life with chronic illness. Based on Sue’s over 20 years living with chronic illnesses in her own family, writing her blog, writing articles on chronic illness, and leading multiple support groups, she provides support and practical advice you can use."

A few of the many 5-star reviews:

Loved It “This book was eye opening and helpful. I am recently diagnosed with Lupus and struggling to understand it all. This book helped me to understand my life isn't over and I don't need to feel guilty when I can't do all the things. Instead I just need to change how we do things such as have movie nights etc.”

A Must Read for Those Struggling with Chronic Illness and Their Families - There is nothing more desperate than trying to find someone who “gets” it! Chronic Illness is real and the emotional toll it takes on the patient and family is tremendous. Looking for someone to help or at least understand is almost impossible. This book gives hope to those suffering from chronic illness by letting them know they are not alone, that there is help out there, and there are things to do to get you through those dark and scary times. There were very limited and often outdated books available to help my family during our initial struggle dealing with a child with a chronic illness. In the beginning life was a lonely and living hell. I was blessed to find Sue and a wonderful group of people online, who shared similar experiences and showed us how to survive in our new “normal”!”

“Encouraging - Chronic illness is difficult to say the least. The daily challenges you face are often so debilitating. Suzan does a wonderful job sharing her and her family's challenges and triumphs living with chronic illness.  What a comfort to know there are people who understand and really "get" what you’re going through. Having support makes a world of difference when you are battling an illness and is essential in moving forward and living your best life.  I recommend this book if you have a chronic illness or if you know someone that does.” 

"Must Read

I am only half way through and it has saved my life. Seriously.”

You can read more about the book and see more reviews, plus a list of links for finding the book (e-book and paperback) through all the major outlets and formats here.

 

If you're in the US, I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend!

Nonfiction Review: Make Time

I heard about Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (a 2018 release) from my friend, Chris Wolak, on one of my favorite book podcasts, Book Cougars, that she hosts with Emily Fine. I felt like I needed some inspiration this year, as last year a lot of important things just didn't get done in my life. I got that, plus some great new tips, from this fun and helpful book.

The authors are two former Google employees, who led teams and created the Design Sprint process while there, who are now living their dream lives. They share what they've learned about focusing on priorities to get the most important things done each day, which is just what I needed right now! Their process is a simple but effective one. First, set a highlight or priority for each day, based on what is important to you. Next, focus on that highlight and beat distractions to make progress. Then, reflect on what worked and didn't work that day, to adjust and improve your own personal system. And do it all again the next day! Each of those major steps (shown in the simple diagram below) is described in detail in the book, with 87 quick and simple tactics that you can pick and choose from to see what works for you. Finally, the whole process is supported by improving your energy (which includes some of its own tactics). That first step--set a focus or highlight for each day--was the missing piece I needed in my own life. The idea is that you may do lots of things in a day, but you set a priority for one thing that will be your primary purpose for that day, that you will give your high-energy, laser-focus time to during your own personal prime time.

That one piece--Set a Daily Highlight--was the most helpful to me. It's something I sort of understood vaguely before, but they helped me to put it into practice. They also reminded me of some things I already try to do--like staying off social media in the morning and jumping right into my priority work--that fell by the wayside last year. Because of my underlying health problems (and very late adoption of a smartphone!), many of their tactics are things I already do but that others will probably find revolutionary. The book is written in a fun, casual style (and illustrated with cartoons), and I enjoyed it ... and was inspired! My new year is off to a great start, thanks to Jake and J.Z. (you, too, will be on a first-name basis with them after reading this book). You can read more about their book and their process at their Make Time website.

287 pages, Currency

(NOTE: In my copy of the book, some of the pages were out of order in the last chapter, which was a bit confusing; however, it was easy for me to figure out which page to read next by looking for the rest of the sentence that was cut-off in the middle! This is the fault of the publisher, not the authors, and I can't imagine how this got past their editors in the final review, but it didn't detract from the value I got from the book overall. I had the hardcover, so perhaps they solved this issue in the paperback.) 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook, read by the authors, here, from the start of the book, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can purchase Make Time from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

 

You can also buy through indie bookstores using Bookshop.

 

Or you can order Make Time from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

Nonfiction Review: Being Mortal

I was happy to hear that one of my book groups chose Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande as our January selection because it's a book I've been meaning to read since its release in 2014. This thoughtful book written by a surgeon about aging, serious illness, and dying is sometimes difficult to read but also very, very important. I learned a lot from it, and it opened my eyes about several topics related to end-of-life issues.

The author weaves together a variety of threads, all about mortality: what is taught to doctors in medical school (almost nothing); stories of his own or other doctor's sick, elderly, and dying patients; interviews and time spent with experts; and his own very painful and personal story of his father's long illness and death. He discusses in detail the way that the medical community today deals with serious illness, aging, and approaching death; for the most part, they seek to prolong life for as long as possible, even if that is not in the patient's best interests. Technology has perhaps outpaced humanity in this realm - just because we can artificially prolong life doesn't always mean we should - and the patient's wishes are often not taken into account. Gawande also delves into the subject of assisted living and nursing home care, which is an eye-opening discussion. Through visits, interviews, and research, he describes the current - mostly deplorable - state of these institutions. As depressing as some of those passages are, the author also searches for and finds many people and organizations who are working hard to change that status and highlights some of the most innovative and exciting developments in the field. Caregivers are not overlooked here; the challenges and difficulties facing close family members are explored as well. And, yes, he examines the difficult topic of death itself, with input from patients, doctors, and hospice workers on what happens currently and what should happen ideally. Woven throughout the narrative is his own story of his father's journey, from terminal diagnosis through increasing symptoms, the need for greater care, hospice, and finally, death.

This is often a difficult book to read, in part because, as seen in the huge turnout for my book group and extensive discussion we had, every reader has his or her own personal story: of a loved one's illness or aging, serious illness in oneself, and/or the difficult and prolonged death of someone close. For me, much of this book brought back painful memories of my dad's death from melanoma a few years ago. Though he was fortunate to stay in his home until his last week, and we were fortunate to have a full  - mostly good - year with him after his diagnosis, that last week in hospital hospice (which is nothing like the wonderful at-home hospice described in the book) was difficult and painful for all of us. In addition, I related to some passages about serious illness because, though I am not dying of cancer or some other degenerative disease, I am living with chronic illness, which has some similarities. Finally, my 93-year old father-in-law is currently in an independent living apartment but having more and more trouble moving around and approaching the day when he will need more care than we can provide. Our discussion in book group was interesting, engaging, and in-depth, and it seemed that everyone had their own story to tell. While some aspects of the book were depressing, to consider the poor state of institutions today and how patients' best interests are not always the first consideration, it was also hopeful to hear about some of the people trying to make things better and the innovations in nursing home care and hospice. All in all, though it is sometimes a difficult read, this is a powerful, thought-provoking, and important book that everyone should read, so that we can all help to make the world a better place for the sick, elderly, and dying - a group that every one of us will join one day.

263 pages, Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt & Co)

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audio book.

You can purchase Being Mortal from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

 

Or you can order Being Mortal from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: Gift From the Sea

In 1990, one of my closest childhood friends gave me the modern classic Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, with a lovely inscription in the front cover. I recently reread the slim book (my third time) and found the lyrical writing and insightful thoughts more resonant than ever.

Lindbergh wrote this small but powerful book during a brief writing retreat at the beach, some rare time for herself in the midst of a busy life as wife and mother. She began it as a journal to herself, thinking that no one else would be able to relate to her very personal musings. She was, of course, very wrong, as this book has remained popular and in print since its publication in 1955, speaking especially poignantly to women of a certain age. In eight chapters, she examines different types of shells that she finds on the beach and compares each one to an aspect of her life, for example, the channeled whelk as an empty home for various sea creatures, with musings about her own "shell." Or an ever-expanding oyster bed as a metaphor for women's lives in the "middle years of marriage," growing unwieldy and continuing to add on new pieces. Each chapter is written in beautiful language that expresses her deepest feelings, as a wife, mother, writer, and woman on topics of peace, balance, purpose, and more. I loved both her insights and her sense of humor in this passage:

"With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding, and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel."

Despite having read the book twice before, I felt like I was discovering it for the first time and could relate deeply to many of Lindbergh's thoughts and feelings, perhaps because I am now closer to the age (a bit beyond it!) that she was when she wrote it, in the midst of family, home, and a writing career. I found that far from being dated, her words written in 1955 are eerily relevant to our modern life in 2018, as here:

"For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels with it. What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!"

Her words apply perfectly to our harried lives today, with social media and the 24-hour news cycle (can you imagine what she'd think of all this?). I could fill pages quoting passages in this review - she shares shrewd, intuitive thoughts on almost every page of the book. It will takes me hours to write all the passages I marked in my Quote Journal! As I envied her two weeks alone at the beach, I inwardly cheered for every page, thinking, "Yes! That's it exactly!" It's amazing that this slim book is so relevant and moving more than 60 years after it was written. As with my friend's thoughtfulness toward me, this timeless book would make a perfect gift for any woman in your life.

138 pages, Vintage Books
Random House Audio

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Though my copy is a 20th anniversary edition,  the version now being sold is a 50th anniversary edition, with a new introduction written by the author's daughter.

Listen to a sample of the audio book. 

Purchase Gift From the Sea from an indie bookstore, either locally or online, here:

 

Or order Gift From the Sea from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: Bored and Brilliant

I devoted November to nonfiction books on audio, too. At the end of the month, I listened to Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self by Manoush Zomorodi, a book I was eager to read after watching Manoush's TED Talk on the same topic (included below). I was fascinated by this book, and it was right up my alley, since I haven't been bored since the '90's and have been feeling very overwhelmed lately.

Manoush is the host of a popular radio show/podcast called Note to Self about living in the modern digital world. In 2015, she led her listeners in a week-long quest to shed some of their bad habits with respect to phones and other devices and see if they could all spend a little less time glued to their phones and a little more time to let their minds wander and be more creative. This book goes through that challenge, with 7 days of mini challenges, supported by lots of research and feedback from her listeners who tried it. Keeping in mind that I listened on audio, so these might not be verbatim, her challenges include:

1. Observe Yourself
2. Put Your Phone Away While In Transit
3. Have a Photo Free Day
4. Delete That App
5. Take a Tech Break
6. Observe Something Else
7. Get Bored - Really Bored

I really enjoyed this audio book and found it very motivating. I don't actually own a smart phone (I know - gasp!), but I spend a LOT of time every day on my laptop (as I am at this moment) and can relate to how every moment is now filled...though, of course, I do take time to read every day! Ironically, since I'd been listening to her book obsessively (I finished it in just a few days), she inspired me to turn off her own book and leave my iPod in my pocket during one of my walks - and it was very nice. I didn't have any earth-shattering new ideas, but I enjoyed the rare bit of quiet time. I would like to try some of her challenges, and I also plan to try her podcast (uh-oh, that's yet another podcast taking up my quiet time!). If you struggle with being a bit too attached to your phone or feel like you haven't had a quiet moment in decades, this is the book for you. And, as a bonus, it is very entertaining, too.

208 pages, St. Martin's Press

P.S. This would make a really fun book group pick, especially if the members all agreed to try the 7-day challenge prior to the discussion!

For a sneak peek at Manoush's book, you can watch her interesting and entertaining TED Talk:

And you can listen to a sample of the author reading her book at this link.

Order Bored and Brilliant from a local independent bookstore:



Or order Bored and Brilliant from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

In the spring, I was at the check-out counter of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT, mostly buying gifts for other people, when I grabbed a copy of Marie Kondo’s best-selling mega hit The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. I figured I should finally read it for myself to find out what all the fuss was about! We have lived in our home for 22 years and raised two kids here, so we could definitely use some decluttering, and I like having things organized. Kondo has some good advice in this slim book and some interesting ways of approaching these tasks, but I also came away thinking she’s a little bit nutty!

There are a couple of unique approaches about her KonMari Method. The one aspect I am most likely to use from her book is that she focuses on what to keep instead of what to get rid of. I am probably like most people in that I approach decluttering with an eye on what I can throw away or donate – flipping through my closet the night before a charity pick-up, thinking, “Hmmm…I haven’t worn this in years, this doesn’t fit anymore, etc.” Conversely, Marie Kondo recommends going through your stuff and for each item, considering whether it sparks joy. This was intriguing to me, since I like to focus on joy in my life, but – again thinking of clothing – I know I keep items that fit me and are OK, but I don’t really love. Kondo says to get rid of those and keep only what sparks joy.

The other unique part of her approach that won’t work for me but might for other people is that she does not recommend going room-by-room or one closet or bookcase or dresser at a time. Rather, she recommends working through one category of item at a time. So, when you are decluttering and organizing your clothing, she says to pull out ALL of your clothes at once – every item in closets, dressers, etc. – and go through it all at once, holding every single item to decide if it sparks joy. Same with books – every single book in your house! That makes logical sense, but with my very limited physical stamina, I would manage it for an hour or 90 minutes and then run out of energy and be stuck with all my clothes or books in the middle of the room! But I can see what she’s getting at – it’s hard to make progress one small bit at a time. I do think she is right about having to take everything out of the closet or dresser or wherever because I know I don’t accomplish much when I try to go through items still packed together.

So, why did I say that Marie Kondo is a little nutty? Well, she goes pretty far afield in her recommendations on storage and organization, after you’ve finished decluttering. She is really into folding and says everything should be folded and stored standing on its edge like books (but she is talking about clothing). She also fervently believes that your stuff needs to “rest” when you are not using it. Here’s what she says to one client:

“I pointed to the balled-up socks. ‘Look at them carefully. This should be a time for them to rest. Do you really think they can get any rest like that?’ ”

She also recommends completely emptying your purse every single day when you get home – again, so that it can rest in between uses. She says we should thank our things for their service – at the end of the day and before we get rid of them. She concludes, toward the end of the book, with this:

“Everything you own wants to be of use to you. Even if you throw it away or burn it, it will only leave behind the energy of wanting to be of service. Freed from its physical form, it will move about your world as energy, letting other things know that you are a special person, and come back to you as the thing that will be of most use to who you are now, the thing that will bring you the most happiness.”

O.K. I think I am just a bit too logical and analytical for that! She also focuses on attaining an ideal that I’m really not interested in – a very spare home with nothing out in the open and all items able to be stored in a single closet. Maybe this is somewhat of a cultural difference, as I know that is more of a Japanese ideal than an American one. I enjoy being surrounded by things I love. Of course, as an avid reader, I can’t imagine purging books as thoroughly as she suggests, and I have heard other book lovers say the same. I love having a full bookcase in every room of my home! Those definitely spark joy. Still, I could certainly use some culling and decluttering.

Marie Kondo’s book spent 99 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and sold over six million copies worldwide, so it seems that she and her methods are very, very popular. She offers some excellent advice in this slim volume (and she wrote a sequel, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up, for those who want more detail). Some of her approaches are different from what you normally read in decluttering and organizing advice, though her methods may not be practical for everyone. Although I don’t think I’ll be thanking my possessions for their service or emptying my purse every day, I do hope to put some of her advice into practice.

206 pages, Ten Speed Press (Berkeley)

I’m interested to hear what YOU think of Marie Kondo’s methods! Have you tried any of the approaches in The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up? What were your experiences?

I purchased this book myself.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
by Marie Kondo and Cathy HiranoHardcover

   

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up
by Marie KondaoHardcover

Or purchase from Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

      

Nonfiction Review: Books for Living

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Will Schwalbe became a best-selling author with his book, The End of Your Life Book Club, which described how he and his dying mother discussed books together, as a way to connect. I have not yet read that book, but it has been on my want-to-read list ever since I first heard of it. Schwalbe’s latest book, Books for Living, is a similar exploration of books, a collection of essays describing life lessons he has learned from various books. I was fortunate enough not only to read this wonderful, inspiring book but also to meet Will in person at Booktopia recently.

Books for Living is divided into chapters, with each one referencing a single book and a life lesson that it taught the author. The list of books itself is surprisingly eclectic and not the books you might immediately think of as inspiring. They run the gamut from children’s books to classic literature, from self-help books written more than 80 years ago to popular novels of today. My own copy of the book is filled with dog-eared pages: book titles I want to read myself, inspiring quotes I want to write in my Quote Journal, and moving insights from the author.

For example, there is a chapter on the classic children’s book Stuart Little, written by the renowned E.B White. This chapter is titled Searching, as that is the crux of the lesson that Schwalbe learned from reading the book. He describes his experiences reading Stuart Little as a child, how deeply he connected with the main character (in case you haven’t read it, Stuart is a smartly dressed, polite, adventurous mouse whose parents are regular people…a fact that is barely even mentioned). He writes about the writing of the novel, about E.B. White’s own thoughts on it, and finally what he (Schwalbe) learned from it. Here is an abridged excerpt from those last paragraphs, on the lessons one can learn from Stuart:

“Try not to run away but to go in search.

Try to remain polite when possible, as Stuart always does, and to accept what can’t be changed…

Try to be as brave as Stuart, and as resourceful as he was when he piloted the model boat to victory.

But more than anything: Try to be as cheerful and optimistic as you can be in the face of whatever comes next.”

In other chapters, Schwalbe explains how The Girl on the Train taught him about Trusting, how David Copperfield taught him about Remembering, how Gift from the Sea taught him about Recharging, and how Reading Lolita in Tehran taught him about Choosing Your Life. In all, there are 26 chapters/essays on 26 very different books and the lessons they taught him. Each essay and lesson is entirely unique, and the reading list is wonderfully diverse.

My favorite chapter/essay is the final one, What the Living Do, on the lesson of Living. In it, he recounts the moving story of a wife who finished reading her husband’s big stack of unfinished books after his death, and how that brought her closer to him. Of course, Schwalbe himself wrote an entire book about how books brought he and his mother closer together, as she was dying. This short chapter brought me to tears – and again when I was describing my own experiences to Schwalbe at Booktopia.

I lost my father almost two years ago, and one of the things I miss most is sharing books with him. As a child, he and I (and my mom, too) passed the latest Stephen King novels between us (this was when King was a newly best-selling author). As an adult, I loved to pick out books for my father as gifts – for holidays and birthdays and later, when he was battling cancer, just because. He still loved mysteries, thrillers, and horror – and still loved Stephen King – and I enjoyed finding new books and authors for him to try. When we got together, he’d excitedly tell us about the books he’d been reading. After he died, my husband and I inherited his extensive collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz books, along with a few other of his favorite thrillers, and seeing that bookcase filled with my dad’s favorite books (in many of which he wrote the date that he read or re-read them) in our bedroom makes me smile and feel closer to him.

Here’s what Schwalbe says on this subject:

“Books and people are bound together. I can’t think about certain books and not about certain people, some living and some dead. The joy I’ve had from these books and from these people, and all I’ve learned from them, merge into one stream in my mind.

We can’t do much for the people we’ve lost, but we can remember them and we can read for them: the books they loved, and books we think they might have chosen.”

I found that entire chapter incredibly moving. As you can probably tell, I absolutely loved reading this thoughtful, special book about books. Schwalbe has a talent for condensing profound wisdom into accessible pieces. This book is not only moving and insightful, it is also warm and witty, like talking about books with a favorite friend. I can’t afford to buy many books for myself (I make generous use of my local library!), but I bought this one, and I know I will turn to it again and again. It’s a lovely reminder of the importance of books in our society, and how even the simplest books can enrich our lives and teach us something.

257 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

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Note: This blog contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me at no extra cost to you.

Link to Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT, which hosted Booktopia:

Books for Living

     

Books for Living
by Grof, StanislavHardcover

Nonfiction Review: Blog Inc.

After ten years of writing two (and sometimes, three) blogs, it’s been a long-time goal of mine to learn more about the technical side of blogging and how to earn some money from my blogging passions. As a freelance writer with limited time and energy, it’s tough to justify the hours I spend writing posts for my blogs…for free! I recently finished reading Blog, Inc: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community by Joy Deangdeelert Cho, and while I already knew the basics, this comprehensive guide to blogging gave me some new ideas on how to improve my blogs and perhaps earn a little money from them to help support their continued existence.

Blog, Inc. covers just about everything you need to know to write a blog. The first chapters cover start-up, with topics including types of blogs, domain names, hosting, and much more. Cho also covers some less obvious topics, like blogging etiquette, writing a bio, and setting up a workspace. Once she’s described the basics and how to get started, she goes on to discuss the business aspects of blogging, like protecting your work, keeping track of financial records and taxes, and all of the ins and outs of placing ads on your blog. She even explains how to take things one step further, with advice on blogging full-time, working with a partner, getting published, and more.

The layout and design of Cho’s book makes it very easy to read, browse through, and digest. She is, after all, a graphic designer herself, and it is clear she has applied some of her own lessons on writing a blog to her book, with short, digestible sections and eye-catching fonts and graphics. The information in her book is interspersed with examples of successful bloggers. Each blogger profile includes an overview and a Q&A about how the blogger got started, where they get their ideas, and other aspects of their blogging success.

The first third of the book was mostly stuff I already knew or had figured out, since I have been blogging for ten years, but I think these sections on the basics would be very helpful to beginners. I tabbed plenty of pages in the rest of the book, on social networking, financial stuff, copyright protection, and analytics. The part I was most interested in – monetizing a blog – was informative for me, though I had hoped to find some blogging professional secrets and was a bit disappointed to learn that the main way to earn money from your blog is simply ads. I have avoided these so far, not wanting to “bother” my readers or overload my blog. Also, one of my blogs is for people with serious chronic illness (many of whom are financially destitute), and I don’t want any advertisers preying on them or selling them things they don’t need.

The anti-ad attitude is my own problem, and I am considering ways to work around my misgivings (please let me know in the Comments how you manage this!), but Cho’s book at least gave me more information on the how-to and the possibilities. Overall, although I got a lot of information from her book that I hope to refer to again, I did feel that I wasn’t really her target audience. I write a book blog and a chronic illness blog, and her example bloggers were all in more visually prominent fields: design, fashion, “lifestyle” blogs, and food writing. Since Cho is a graphic designer herself and her own blog has that focus on the visual, some of her advice seemed irrelevant for someone writing about books and illness. Though she did mention something called Multiple Blogging Disorder, which I just might have!

If you are considering starting up a new blog or are new to blogging and plan to focus on a very visual topic, then Cho’s book is a perfect, indispensible guide. If, like me, your blog is less visual and/or you are an old hat at blogging, then this book is less focused exactly on your needs…but there is still a lot to be learned from certain sections. Cho is a very successful blogger herself, who has turned blogging into a full-time job, picked up clients because of her blog, launched her own product lines related to her blog, and (obviously) published books (there are more) from her blog content and blogging experience. She is definitely a blogging expert, and you can learn a lot from this easy-to-read, pleasingly designed book.

179 pages, Chronicle Books

Nonfiction: How To Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness

I have read and reviewed two previous books by the talented author (and my friend) Toni Bernhard: How To Be Sick and How To Wake Up. The first was about applying the principles of Buddhism to a life of chronic illness, and the second was a more general book – for anyone, not just those chronically ill – about applying Buddhism principles for a happier, more peaceful life. In her third book, How To Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide, Toni once again focuses on those living with chronic illness and pain, with a more general guide, based on her own life and experiences and the wonderful columns, “Turning Straw Into Gold,” that she has written for Psychology Today.

I hardly know where to start because Toni covers so much ground in this incredible book, and there is so much useful information packed into it. Her short, easy-to-read chapters cover every aspect of life with chronic illness or pain, from the benefits of patience to the problems with complaining, from mindfulness techniques to dealing with doctors, and from appreciating what you have to guidelines for your friends and family. Toni’s warm, kind tone runs through it all, interweaving her own experiences with advice for others.

I don’t normally do this in a review, but I really want to give you an idea of the broad scope of this book, so here are the major section titles (each section contains short, useful chapters):

 

      I.         Skills to Help with Each Day

    II.         Mindfulness: Potent Medicine for Easing the Symptoms of Chronic Illness

  III.         Responding Wisely to Troubling Thoughts and Emotions

   IV.        Special Challenges

     V.        Isolation and Loneliness

   VI.       Enjoy the Life You Have

 VII.       For Family, Friends, Caregivers, and Anyone Concerned About Chronic Illness

VIII.      Last But Not Least

As with her previous two books, my copy was filled with dogged-eared corners by the time I finished reading it! I loved the quotes from others that she includes at the start of each chapter, like this one:

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

-       William James

I could relate to many of her own experiences (which, in itself, always helps – to know you are not alone), and as always, I found her advice to be compassionate, straightforward, and very helpful. Sometimes, I encountered certain topics just when I needed them most, like When You and Those You Love Are in Conflict, and wanted to highlight every line in the section! Here is one example passage:

Understanding a conflict from the other person’s point of view helps you see that a seemingly callous or indifferent reaction to the difficulties in your relationship does not automatically mean that your loved one doesn’t care about you. Instead, it may reflect his or her worries and fears about your medical condition – a reaction that stems from love and concern for you. Understanding this makes it easier not to take your loved one’s behavior personally.

As you can see just from that brief quote, Toni’s approach is always calm and compassionate. As she herself states, “I’ve worked hard to find a measure of peace in the midst of feeling misunderstood,” and she takes that hard-won experience (in this and every other topic) and helps boil it down to basic, simple steps that we can all take to improve our lives and cope better with chronic illness.The wording and look of the cover tell you what you need to know: the emphasis here is on Living Well.

With this mix of personal experience and common-sense advice that you can easily put into practice, Toni’s latest book is my favorite of the three (though the other two are well worth reading, too!). I know I will turn to this book again and again when I go through a rough spot, as I have already, and I’m sure it will be even more helpful for those who are newer to chronic illness. Toni’s advice is always so spot-on, so calm and reassuring and sensible, that my husband recently started joking with me about it. When I get upset over something related to my illness, he looks at me with a smile and says, “What would Toni do?”

331 pages, Wisdom Publications

NOTE: If you, like my son and I, live with chronic illness, check out my chronic illness blog. It covers some topics specific to our illnesses (an immune disorder called ME/CFS and Lyme and other tick infections) but also many topics about emotional coping, joy, and daily life that are relevant for any chronic illness. Like Toni, I take a positive approach to living with chronic illness, with an emphasis on LIVE.

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

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Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

 

Or you can order How To Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.