11 Books to help you BEAT the BLUES...

Studies show reading books, including self-help books can detrimental in treating mental illness, finding them as beneficial as individual or group therapy when it comes to uni polar depression, as well as helpful in treating anxiety.

This is KIND OF A BIG DEAL, right! 

So, I, being the clever Kel that I am , came up with a LIST of some great books to CHEER you UP, whether because two people get married, or someone is so funny, etc. etc. etc.

DISCLAIMER: The following list is in NO WAY a prescription, and I am in NO WAY a Doctor or Professional who is authorized to prescribe treatment. 

This list contains everything: classics and poetry and memoirs and weird old books you've never heard of. All you need is a cup of coffee (also suspected to lift the mood).

1. Emma by Jane Austen

It doesn't get much sweeter than little Miss Emma's love story. Basically, she makes a lot of bad decisions and gets in trouble, but just barely, and through it all her childhood friend/future husband loves her anyway. There are lots of adorable misunderstandings that seem tragic at the time but get pleasingly resolved by the end of the book.

2. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

The bubbly pace of this book gets serious when the mom goes missing, but I promise everything turns out fine in the end. This book will make you feel warm and sentimental as you miss your cool, weird mom.

3. Self Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile Coué

A French hypnotherapist wrote this book in 1922, when people were busy inventing ridiculous things like the "anti-forgery pen," but his prescription of simple, daily affirmations was ahead of its time. Try Coué's lovely little statement yourself, right now: "Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better."

4. Every single book in the Anne of Green Gables series

Nothing goes wrong here. Sure, proposals flop and a few people die, but Anne's world is one of those blissful places where things are never truly not okay. Plus, Anne's indomitable willingness to daydream is incredibly inspiring.

5. Bringing the Shovel Down by Ross Gay

Ross Gay is the exuberant Whitman of our time; his poems can't help but overflow with a dangerously contagious love of life. For a sample of his style, check out three of his poems in Timber Journal.

6. The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis

Reading about love, exploring love, thinking about love, remembering that love exists — these are all ways in which happiness lies. C. S. Lewis' nuanced treatment of love is both inspiring and fascinating.

7. Hello American Lady Creature by Lisa L. Kirchner

Sometimes all you want is to read about someone else's life: the good, the bad, and the yoga classes. The narrative of Hello American Lady Creature is packed with plenty of loss — an inability to have children, a crushing divorce, the state of being alone far from home — but it ends in soaring redemption. Who doesn't love a good pulling-oneself-up-by-one's-bootstraps ride?

8. Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts by Regena Thomashauer

Don't get me wrong, this is a ridiculous book. It insists that you do things to yourself with glitter. I cannot elaborate. But frothy pink packaging aside, it's an overblown reminder that women need to be a little bit more selfish and a lot more pleasure-centric. The perfect indulgent read for when you're feeling awfully unglamorous.

9. Herzog by Saul Bellow

I adored this book, and found the obsessive narrator's slow, slow, slow recovery both fascinating and heartening, but I wouldn't have recommended it in this list if I hadn't stumbled across a Guardianarticle where the author read Herzog to help him out of his own slump. Looks like reading about a depressive can, in a way, be its own cure.

10. Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs

Whether or not you want to treat your ailments with a sprig of rosemary is up to you, but it never hurts to read up on your folklore. Plus, studies have actually shown that gardening helps with depression. Don't mock the rosemary until you plant it.

11. Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P.G. Wodehouse

How does that phrase go — an ounce of laughter is worth a pound of literally everything else? Anyway, I'll be recommending Wodehouse books as the world's best laughing cure until the day I die (from laughing). How great is that title? If you can handle British humor with a good helping of the ridiculous, this is the book you want in your solitary corner.

@KelleyAmstutz

/kel.amstutz

KAMSTUTZ09

Also posted on: https://kam0900.wordpress.com

11 Books that will make you FALL IN LOVE with READING

There’s something just plain magical about finding a genuinely fantastic book. The book you can’t put down, the one you stay up half the night reading, the book experience you can’t wait to talk about with your friend who is hopefully as equally obsessed with the story and characters as you are. The one that, once you finish, leaves you devastated (in the best way, of course).

Once you know true book love, your whole life changes. Because immediately after you finish one spectacular book, you’ll want more. 

• More books. 
• More genres.
• More authors to discover. 

You’ll wonder why you haven’t been reading your entire life. 

Your bookshelves will start to overflow and groan under the weight of other people’s stories. Your library card will become worn down and faded with use. You will spend hours and hours reading alright-but-kind-of-mediocre books your sister/brother/friend recommended, only to find them lacking. But once you find the next amazing book, the one that makes you want to skip work or school so you can read one more chapter, it’s so, so worth it.

Get ready to fall in love with the following books. 

And remember, once you finish this list of truly wonderful titles, there are plenty more where that came from.

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

If someone were to ask what this book is really about, it’d be hard to explain in just one sentence. At its core, it’s about a girl growing up in Brooklyn. But it’s so much more than that. It’s about poverty. It’s about a neighborhood. It’s about relationships: friendly, familial, and romantic. It’s about a horse that falls in love. It’s about hope. This book is about nothing and everything at once. And once you start reading it, you won’t be able to stop.

2. The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling

Okay, this one might seem a little obvious, and it’s definitely seven books, not one. But if you’ve already read these books, they’re most likely one of your favorite series of all time. If you haven’t read them, are you waiting for a formal invitation? Read them already! And if you haven’t read them because you think seeing the movies was enough, well, there’s no hope for you, sorry.

3. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s only novel, this book is excellent because, apart from the fantastic story and great character development, it makes you want to know more. After reading it, you’ll be sure to be found late at night, Wikipedia-ing Sylvia’s life, the parallels between her and Esther Greenwood, researching her lost diaries, and generally wishing you had known about this book earlier.

4. Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell

It’s hard to pick a favorite book by Rainbow Rowell — all of them are amazing — but you should definitely start with this one. Eleanor & Park is a lovely teenage romance, minus cheesy ooey-gooey teenage love antics. An easy read, you’re sure to go through this one quickly, but you’ll connect with the characters immediately. And after you’re done, you’ll find yourself wondering/obsessing over what Eleanor Douglas and Park Sheridan are up to now. (It’s a normal reaction, we promise.)

5. Redefining Realness, Janet Mock

If you’re looking for a compelling memoir, look no further. Redefining Realness explores author Janet Mock’s personal journey as a trans woman growing up in Hawaii. Her journey to womanhood is filled with strength, passion, and drive, and this memoir is nothing short of inspiring. Janet Mock is an amazing figure and an extremely articulate and intelligent woman, and this book will make you fall a little bit in love with her.

6. Columbine, Dave Cullen

This book, which took journalist Dave Cullen 10 years to research and write, will keep you reading through the night. It will also make you reconsider any bias you might have had against the nonfiction genre. Columbine explores the school shooting of 1999, leaving no stone unturned and leaving no myth of the event unexplored. It provides an interesting, thorough, and fresh look into an event that dominated the news cycle at the time, switching from the events leading up to the day and the political, media, and community reaction that happened afterward.

7. New York: The Novel, Edward Rutherford

New York will make you fall in love with the city in a way you never thought possible. Taking the form of short story–like chapters, it follows the timelines of several families from the city’s beginnings as an unsettled region to Sept. 11, 2001. This historical fiction uses New York as a central character, exploring her evolution and growth as one the world’s most bustling epicenters. It’s powerful even if you don’t live near the Big Apple, but if you do, get ready to see the city in an entirely new way.

8. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

The first thing to know about this book is it basically invented the mystery/sensation genre. Highly underrated, this novel will have you racing to the end, desperate to know if you’re right. Written over 150 years ago (1859), this book is a classic and definitely not to be missed.

9. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of those books you probably should have read in college. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, or maybe you were supposed to but just pretended you had. Either way, you should give this one a go — or a second read. Joan Didion is the kind of woman you wish you could have drinks with. The kind of person whose thoughts jump off the page and revive you like a breath of fresh air. This collection of essays explores the mood of 1960s America, and, honestly, is a masterpiece. And once you finish, you’ll definitely have a favorite essay that you come back to, time after time.

10. Love Stories of WWII, Larry King

Sometimes you just need a good cry. This book delivers the waterworks, and then some. Per its title, this book features narrated love stories of the Second World War. Both moving and inspiring, the stories are widely varied, from childhood sweethearts to chance encounters. Love Stories of WWII gives you a glimpse to another time and a world that was ripped apart by war, but in which many of these couples experienced the connection of their lifetimes.

11. Holes, Louis Sacha

Don’t discriminate against books intended for those younger than you. Holes has a great story, with even better characters. If you didn’t read it when you were younger, you’re bound to fall a little bit in love with almost everyone in this book — well, the good guys, anyway. Added bonus? After you’re finished, treat yourself to a viewing party of the 2003 film adaptation, which was relatively well done and features a baby-faced Shia LaBeouf.

@KelleyAmstutz

/kel.amstutz

KAMSTUTZ09

Also posted on: https://kam0900.wordpress.com