Habit Books – Badass and Atomic

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Carol Early Cooney

Dear Fellow Reader,

Like many, I start the new year off with thoughts of changes. It is a fresh start and I think of things I can do to make my new year better. Yes, resolutions can be part of this but every year they talk on the news shows about how fast people give up on their resolutions. According to Inc Magazine, * approximately 80 percent of people have dropped their resolution by the second week of February but there is also some research that indicates the most drop out by January 19th .

Those do not seem like good odds. Also, I don’t know about you, but I am not good with goals. I can set them just fine, but I don’t keep them. I want to but there is something in my brain that just stops me every time.

I decided that instead of making goals or resolutions that I would try and make some new habits. Better habits seemed far more within my range. Also, I decided that I would find out a bit more about habits so that I could improve my chances of being successful. How much do I know about starting a new habit? I would just say that you determine your habit and then set aside a time to do it every day. Something like that…

BUT, being a reader, I decided that I could find out more. Which is where we are this week. If you are interested in starting or improving some habits, I have two book suggestions for you. One of the books that originally brought habits to my mind is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I read this book many years ago and thought it was great. I probably should have gone back and re-read that book, but it seemed to me that while I loved the examples and stories in the book, I didn’t come away knowing how to get myself to make new habits. Fresh eyes might have changed that feeling but quite frankly, I didn’t think of it.

I did read about a new book titled, Atomic Habits by James Clear. The review was positive and I was interested to see what he had to say. There was a long line for the book at the library, so it took a while to get it. In the meantime, I found that one of my favorite self-help authors has a new book entitled Badass Habits. While I waited for Atomic Habits, I picked up Badass Habits.

Badass Habits by Jen Sincero is a follow up to her book You Are a Badass? What I would tell you about Ms Sincero’s books is that they are casual. As you might’ve understood from the title. But I have found them to be very interesting and they make sense to me.

“Most habits score woefully low in the immediate gratification department… most habits take a while to produce the desired results, which makes them more difficult to stick with because we humans love us some payoff.” 

What I really like about the book is that Ms Sincero takes you through the process of setting a new habit and then takes you through – one day at a time – for the first 21 days of habit keeping. Yes, she gives you something to do every day for 21 days to enforce and perhaps refine your new habit. I like that re-enforcement. She also wants you to have a notebook with you when you read so that you can do some exercises to help re-enforce points as they apply to your habit.

Ms. Sincero is a big believer in using mantras or affirmations to help you achieve your goals. If you think this is silly, this book won’t work for you. But if you have never tried it, I suggest you might open up and try. You might find them helpful.

The second habit book I read was Atomic Habits by James Clear. I don’t think I had any idea what an atomic habit was when I started the book. It sounds like a big thing doesn’t it? No, it is the opposite.

“Habits are the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment. They are both small and mighty. This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits – a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power a component of the system of compound growth.”

Mr. Clear talks about the compounding effect of positive and negative habits. He states that if you can get 1 percent better every day, then you will improve by 37 percent after one year. And that if you keep a bad habit that it will get worse over time. To explain this, he gives interesting real-life examples of small changes that were made and how much improvement was gained. He explains the 4 Laws of Behavior Change which are cue, craving, response, and reward. He has a section to explain each of the laws and has a summary at the end of each section. The book is clear and gives very interesting examples from the real world.

Are you wondering if I would pick one book over the other? No, I wouldn’t. They each have excellent points. And they do agree with one another on the theories, although they say things in very different ways. I found myself reading Atomic Habits nodding and thinking the Ms. Sincero said that same thing. I liked the more detailed explanations and chapter summaries in Atomic Habits but I think there is great benefit to the 21 days of re-enforcement in Badass Habits.

Only time will tell but I am working on some new habits. You might want to consider these books if your resolutions are gone with the wind but you have some life changes you wish to make.

Thanks for reading!

*(https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-study-of-800-million-activities-predicts-most-new-years-resolutions-will-be-abandoned-on-january-19-how-you-cancreate-new-habits-that-actually-stick.html#:~:text=You’re%20probably%20painfully%20familiar,Year’s%20resolutions%20have%20dropped%20them)

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Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey by Kathleen Rooney

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Carol Early Cooney
Major Charles Whittlesey

Dear Fellow Reader,

I have talked before about how impressed I am with the imagination that some writers have. To create stories out of thin air is quite an accomplishment. Especially if the story is very strange. (See my review on Things in Jars by Jess Kidd.) The last two books I have read have been in the interesting  story line category.

I had read Kathleen Rooney’s previous book, Lillian Boxfish takes a Walk, a few years ago. I was also able to see her in person at my local library. I enjoyed the book and was interested in how Ms. Rooney came up with the plot. (The story was based on a real person, Margaret Fishback. Ms. Rooney, through a friend had access to Ms. Fishback’s files.)

Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is the second book by Kathleen Rooney. I knew nothing about the book when I picked it up. Okay, this book, while interesting has very different main characters. As you may guess from the title, the main characters are Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Cher Ami is, at the time of the story, a stuffed homing pigeon that is on display at the Smithsonian. Yes, you read that right. A stuffed pigeon. But she is a famous pigeon. (I bet you didn’t know that there were famous pigeons.) Cher Ami was a homing pigeon during WWI and was used by the American Troops to relay messages between the front and the headquarters. In her role, she was awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal by the French and an Oak Leaf Cluster.

Major Whittlesey was a real Major during WWI. The battalion that he led was the “Lost Battalion” in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He was awarded the Unites States Army Medal of Honor.

The book tells the story of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey’s lives and (apparently) Cher Ami’s post life as a stuffed pigeon in the Smithsonian.

This is Cher Ami – the stuffed version

Okay, the stuffed pigeon part is odd. But an interesting take on the story. Yes, WWI is a main component of the story, but it isn’t your typical historical fiction story. Until I just looked, I didn’t even think of it as being historical fiction. I just thought it was fiction. So, if you are sick of historical fiction, I think that you will find this book to be refreshing. Being partially written by a pigeon is certainly different.

And if you don’t like stories with more than one narrator because it is hard to keep them straight, you won’t need to worry about that with this book.

Overall, I liked the book. I thought it moved a little slowly sometimes and there are a lot of characters in the war scenes. I learned new things about pigeons that I never knew before. The primary thing being that Cher Ami was misnamed. She was mistaken to be a male pigeon when she was a female pigeon. (This will be brought up more that you can imagine in the book.)  There is humor in the book also – it is far from just a book about WWI.

Thanks for reading.

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Maggie Finds Her Muse by Dee Ernst

Posted on January 5, 2021 by Carol Early Cooney

Dear Fellow Reader:

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a safe and happy holiday season. Hard to believe that it is over already!  And (as Silent Sam sadly pointed out the other day) we have almost six months until our next day off. Now, that is depressing!

For those of you, like me, are facing another grey day outside, it is time for some LIGHT reading. Unfortunately, the book I am reviewing today will not be available until April 20th. Yes, I know, I don’t usually review books before they are out, but I have had this book for a long time and it still has a long time until it comes out. I thought I should review it while it is still fresh in my mind. (And yes, I received a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.)

Maggie Finds Her Muse is a story about Maggie, who is a writer with a deadline. Her third book is due to the editor in six weeks and she hasn’t had any inspiration to sit down and write. This book is part of the key to her financial independence and she feels that she needs to get going on it. But the words aren’t coming. She is frustrated.

And then we meet her live-in. He only spends part of the year with her – otherwise he is off doing speaking events or closed into his cabin writing. He is with her when he is teaching at the same school where she teaches. She tries to talk with him about how she is stuck in her writing, but he ignores her and tells her what he needs her to do for him. And that was the end. She kicked him out. This is not helping her writing issue. In talking to her agent, she confesses that she has not been writing and that she has kicked out her current man. The agent is horrified. He tells her that he and his partner are leaving for Paris the next week and she should come with them to their apartment so she can write. (under his watchful eyes) At first, she hesitates but then gives in and goes to Paris.

She has a daughter living outside of Paris and it turns out that her ex-husband will be in town at the same time. They are friendly; they agreeably split years before so seeing her ex is not an issue.

She has no thought about re-kindling her love for her ex nor does she expect to fall in love with the man she finds in her bathtub one morning. She just wants to write her book. Love is not part of her equation.

This is Dee Ernest’s 30th book. Wow! She writes Chick lit and cozy mysteries. The book was the balm I needed when I read it. A light, quick read that is satisfying. I see that Kindle has one of her other books (A Mother’s Day Murder) free on kindle right now. It is the first in a series. I have downloaded it. While not a book to change your world view, it is a comfort book. And come on, there is a pandemic, who doesn’t need a comfortable book?

Thanks for reading!

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Year End

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Carol Early Cooney

Dear Fellow Reader,

I have a confession to make. I have not been reading as much lately. I started knitting again and took a little break to knit in the evening rather than read. But then I realized that my Goodreads annual goal was coming up and I needed to read.

So, I kinda cheated. Yep, I picked out some books that I knew I could read quickly to get to my goal for the year. Now, I suppose that isn’t really cheating but with so many books surrounding me, to pick up (from the library) books that I could quickly read seemed like cheating.

Are you wondering what I picked up? I went to Carolyn Hart’s Bailey Ray series. They are light and easy to read. (As in – can be read in one evening) While they are fine, I found that reading two in a row was a bit much. There is something about reading the explanation for the premise of the book twice in a row. That didn’t do much for me. But the stories are about what I expected and they were fine.

Sometimes, it isn’t bad to read something that is a bit formulaic. You know what I mean; the situation will be different but in general there will be a problem and then another problem and then it will all work out. At times, it is comforting to read those kinds of stories.

I’ve been thinking about the books that I have read in the last year. I am sure you also find it hard to remember when you read a particular book. Was it this year or last? That is why I do like keeping track of the books I have read on Goodreads. I can see when I read them. And I do like to have a goal – it pushes me to get reading at times that I just don’t feel like it. (Yes, there are those times.)  In looking over the list from this year, I see a few favorites and a few new series that I plowed through. One of my favorite books of the year was City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Oh, I didn’t want to read that book but then I loved the writing. Luckily, I had picked up a used copy of the book because I didn’t feel bad marking it up and putting notes in it. I also discovered a local author, J.F. Riordan, and even had the pleasure of meeting her. One of my favorites, Elizabeth Berg has two books on my list this year. Near the beginning of the year, I read The Confession Club, which is the third book in the Mason series. And then recently her memoir about her parents, I’ll Be Seeing You, came out. I read Karen White’s Tradd Street series. Her protagonist is annoying at times, but overall the books were good.

But I have piles of books to go. It is amazing that there are always so many. I swore last year that I was going to finish my physical book pile – in contrast to my eBook pile- by the end of the year. Now here is it a year later and there are more books there than there were before and some of the same books are there. I really need to put in a concerted effort in to get that pile down. It is a good thing that Silent Sam can’t see how many eBooks there are to read on my Kindle. I could probably go for a year without going to the library between my physical stack and my eBooks.

The problem is that there are always new books that sound so good. Books that I just have to read. Odd books (Meanwhile There Are Letters: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald), Biographies (Promised Land by Barack Obama), The author’s next book (Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey by Kathleen Rooney), and many more that I will come across in the next year. (And book group books and books recommended by friends, and on and on and on.)

Thank you for joining me on this journey. We have traveled to some far-off places and found our hearts lost to good guys and villains. We have had a chance to have our outlook grow and learn something new. What a great opportunity we have when we read.

Wishing you the best holiday season.

Thanks for reading!

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I’ll Be Seeing You by Elizabeth Berg

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Carol Early Cooney

 

Dear Fellow Reader,

I don’t know if you know this, but I am a fan of Elizabeth Berg. Yes, I like her books. I also enjoy her Facebook posts. If you have not read her Facebook posts, I urge you to follow her.

Her written voice is so friendly and down to earth that I think we could be friends. I know this sounds weird, but I do. No, I do not stalk her. No, she has no idea who I am. (We have met twice at book signing but she meets lots of women that way and I know she has no idea who I am.) At one of the book signings, there was a woman who had been to like 20 of her book signings. She has a big fan base. And for good reason.

She generally writes fiction. Her latest series (the Mason Books) are wonderful. She has 30 books that are published by traditional publishing houses and then three books of her Facebook posts. I am not kidding about her Facebook posts. You need to read them. She writes about just day to day things and sometimes asks for advice.

There was one book of hers that I did not like as much as the others. She wrote a Biographical Fiction book, The Dream Lover. It was the story about George Sand, the author whose real name was Aurore Dudevant. It was fine but it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies that her fiction pieces give me.

So, it was with a little trepidation that I started I’ll Be Seeing You. This is yet another departure for her, this book is a memoir about her parents. I was hoping that I would like it. Guess what? I did. I really liked it.

The book centers on a particular time in her parent’s life. It is her parent’s last years. As the book opens, her father has dementia and the disease is progressing. Her parents need to leave the house they have called home for many years and move to a place where they can have more assistance. This is a terrible time in one’s life both as the parent and the child.

I think part of my trepidation with the book is from my own background. My parents also had to leave the place they had called home for many years and move to a lovely place where they could get more help. They moved to the town where I lived and I had the fortune and mis-fortune to be their primary contact.

One of the things that I really liked was that Elizabeth didn’t gloss over her feeling and reactions. She wasn’t harsh but she expresses the frustration that she was feeling. You can see why she feels that way and how she tries to work with her parents to make things as pleasant as possible. She allows glimpses of her view of the life her parents have led. (And how lovely to have a husband that adores you the way her father adored her mother.) She lets you see that she lost her temper and felt sad and sorry. The reader also learns about the changes in her relationship with her father. While the book is specifically about the last years with her parents, it covers a lifetime of their relationships.

If you have not experienced supporting an elderly parent, then the book might not touch all the feelings that it would if you have had the experience. But it is a lovely memoir even if you haven’t had that in your life. Elizabeth Berg writes in such an accessible way that you feel that you are sitting with her as she tells the story.

“I learned that the frustration and anger that come up in these situations goes both ways: you’re frustrated and/or angry with your parents, and they’re frustrated and/or angry with you. I saw how deep the despair can be in understanding that you can no longer properly care for yourself, but I also saw how accepting the love and help that are offered can foster a whole new level of appreciation and understanding between parents and children. I learned that in the middle of what can feel like a gigantic, painful mess, there can suddenly be the saving grace of humor, or the salve of a certain kind of insight.” Elizabeth Berg

In summary, I liked the book. I read the book in one day, which tells you how absorbing it was and that it is a quick read. The book is out today (Happy Publication Day!). I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Thanks for reading!

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