Books about resilience, vampires, and winter
Here's one final book list for the last two months of the year! I'll be rolling in with my "Most Influential Books I Read in 2022" soon, but in the meantime, here's what I've been reading lately.
Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness by Rick Hanson and Forrest Hanson
I'd previously read Hanson's book Buddha's Brain, which had a lot of useful information but was dense and science-heavy, which made it a bit of a tough read. This book contains a lot of the same principles but skips the neuroscience lessons in favor of sticking with clear, straightforward, practical ways to bring more equanimity, boundaries, and inner calm into your life.
As with most self-help books, the information is only useful if you put it into practice, but the suggestions are doable and the writing style simple and encouraging. I've found it very useful— I particularly loved the chapter on Aspiration— and highly recommend it.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
I haven't quite finished reading through the whole novel in book form yet, but I finished it months ago through the email newsletter "Dracula Daily," so I'm counting it. Later I'll wax poetic about how joining the unofficial "Tumblr book club" surrounding this novel transformed my creative life this year, but for the moment, I'll just say this: if you love Gothic romance or found-family adventures with a little helping of classic horror on the side, you have to read this book!
Pop culture gave me an incredibly inaccurate idea of the plot: it's less like a horror film and more like an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (you think I jest, but I'm dead serious). There are horror elements and violence, but the core of the story is love, both romantic and platonic. (Apparently most every adaptation has completely missed this and tried to make Dracula the main love interest, which, uh, he very much is not in the book.)
The story also features the most amazing Gothic couple of all time (I am never not swooning over Jonathan and Mina Harker), a set of three young suitors who are also best friends whose mutual crush wishes she could marry all three of them, and an eccentric old professor who likes to monologue about corn. There is lots of manly crying, characters caring for each other, details about trains, sleepovers at friends' houses, Victorian-era medical malpractice, blood transfusions, excessively long scenes written in near-indecipherable cockney slang, and people, wolves and objects crashing through windows. The timeline often doesn't make much sense, and Bram Stoker can't seem to remember what color everyone's hair is. But what comes through at the heart of the story is love, and I cannot resist a good love story.
If you're on the fence about reading it, just wait until May rolls around and "Dracula Daily" starts up again. I will be bugging you about it.
Making Winter: A Hygge-Inspired Guide to Surviving the Winter Months by Emma Mitchell
This book is so fun and cute! It's a book of winter-themed projects, from crocheting a headband to making hot drinks, encouraging the Danish practice of hygge— being cozy when the weather outside is frightful. I love project-based books like this and it was very inspiring.
Previously on What I've Been Reading:
All What I've Been Reading posts
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