Change your life. One book at a time.
Beliefs. They bring solace. They cause suffering. They unite us. And they divide us. Sarah Krasnostein, author of the much-lauded The Trauma Cleaner, was curious about living in that cognitive space between “the world as we’d like it to be and the world as it is”. What is it to have beliefs that exist on the fringes? And what, in this world of diverse beliefs, are our commonalities? What could
Brené Brown is a superstar of the self-help world. Since coming to prominence internationally in 2010 through her TEDtalk on vulnerability, Brown has published five best sellers, toured the world as a speaker, hosts two popular podcasts, and leads a personal development enterprise that encourages folks to get vulnerable. Brown’s CV may tell us that she’s a researcher, teacher, speaker and writer but, first-and-foremost, she is a storyteller. I’ve not
How do we live without regrets? There are some who are able to draw a line under a decision and move on with life but for the rest of us, we live with those quiet voices that pop up when we’re feeling low. “If only I’d taken that job when it was offered.” “Life would be so much different if I’d said no.” “I should have done more at the
Time to put your feet up and get comfy with a good book? Here are ten uplifting, heart-warming, life-changing reads to lighten up your world. 2020 will be remembered not only for a virus that turned the world upside down but also for how it changed our relationship to reading. For many, there was little brain space to take in the complexities of a shopping list let alone a novel
As we hurtle towards the end of our ‘unprecedented’ year, the question arises: What do we want our ‘new normal’* to be in 2021? These three books inspire us to create a better normal. The Future We Choose: Surviving the climate crisis by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac has been sitting on my bookshelf since March. Way back then, bushfires had just devastated our communities and landscape but in the
Reading Jane Harper’s The Survivors not only had me wanting to solve a mystery but it challenged me to be a better person. What is it about crime novels that keep readers coming back – book after book? Some answers easily come to mind – comfort, certainty, courageous characters, and confirmation of the belief that “justice prevails”. However, it was only when reading Jane Harper’s latest crime novel, The Survivors,
From the opening page, I knew Sarah Wilson’s book was going to be our first Rise & Shine Book Club selection. She tells the story of arriving at LAX airport and the customs officer, noting she is a writer, asks what she’s writing right now. Sarah responds, “Well, the working title is Wake the f*ck up”. The title may have changed but This One Wild and Precious Life is a
The theme for our first Rise and Shine Book Club was “The books that changed your life”. But how do we find the books that change our lives? Whenever I ask the question, “What book changed your life?”, I am always surprised (and delighted) by the diversity of responses. Cook books. Memoirs. Novels. Self-help. History. Classics. Car manuals. But what is it about these books that make them life-changing? Is
Announcing a new kind of book club where you change your life, one book at a time. Get ready to Rise and Shine. Books open up our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking, living and being. We could be reading a novel or memoir, pop psychology or history, philosophy or science and something connects with us so profoundly that it sparks us into the next chapter of our
A new book from Viktor Frankl, Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything, sees three of the famous psychotherapist’s early lectures on life-meaning published in English for the first time. For those who have not come across Viktor Frankl’s work before, he is most well-known for his memoir Man’s Search for Meaning in which he wrote about his time in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during WW2, and how