Happy Saturday friends! I think this is a great week to pause and do some literary looking. The month of January was rife with excellent reading material, both digital and print, and I am happy to have made a small dent in my 2016 goal. A couple of these titles warrant their own full reviews, but for today, here are some nudges from me to you. Please share what you have been reading too. I love to hear all about that.

Books:

BIG MAGIC
by Elizabeth Gilbert

This book was lovely. I am letting it count toward one of my best-sellers reads of 2016, though I had sort of intended that to be best-selling fiction. Big Magic is sort of a creative’s manifesto. In it, Gilbert is encouraging, liberating, smart, sassy, and very much the feminine counter-balance to the more industrious guidance Stephen King offers in his creative memoir On Writing (my review of that is here). Gilbert really calls down the power of magic, after all. At least that’s how it struck me. And I loved it. Five of five stars, for what it is. Compared to her other books I have enjoyed (Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things) this one was not my favorite; but it did have the quality of sparking my writing-living-nest-feathering energy and of having offered a long conversation with the author. That was really nice.

One of the oldest and most generous tricks that the universe plays on human beings is to bury strange jewels within us all, and then stand back to see if we can ever find them. ~Elizabeth Gilbert BIG MAGIC

This quote is perhaps my favorite takeaway theme from Big Magic. How tantalizing!

My Life on the Run
by Bart Yasso

I nibbled this book last autumn after meeting the author at the Spirit of Survival half-marathon in Lawton, Oklahoma. I enjoyed my chapter nibbles then and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it cover to cover this month, plus a few chapters multiple times. I will post a full review next week. For now, I offer you this little treasure, part of Bart explaining how a burro race operates and what are the differences between all the creatures:

Mules are the domesticated offspring of a female horse and a donkey, and a burro is a small donkey. A jackass is a wild donkey or someone who runs a race with a burro. ~Bart Yasso, My Life on the Run

The Shack
by William Paul Young

Oh, friends. I can barely make a passing mention of this book without really diving in. Please please please tune in for my second review soon. The first one was way back in August 2011, when my life was so very different. Reading this same book now, with five years of life changes, growth, and spiritual enrichment along for the ride, was a completely new experience! At least two of my friends are reading it for the second and third times, too, and I am looking forward to comparing notes. How wonderful. Apparently this is something I will need to own in hardback in order to refer to it many times in the future, as life continues to evolve.

I suppose that since most our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing, and that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside. ~William Paul Young, The Shack

Online Articles & Blog Posts:

Lifeingrace:

Edie is blogging again!! This makes me so happy. A few days ago she shared a beautiful, thoughtful piece on why we should still bother building a family library. My Mom would probably appreciate this as much as I do. Welcome back, Edie! We are all so excited for your book release!

Meta-Marriage: Ten Big Truths for Every Committed Couple

I  would genuinely appreciate this series even if its author was a faceless expert in some far-flung think tank I will never explore. But the fact that this very meaty and nourishing stuff is a gift to the world from my friend and local writer Kelly Roberts? Well, I shouldn’t have to tell you how happy that makes me. Red Dirt Kelly, as most of us locals know her, really knows her stuff. And her delivery is warm. Go check it out! This is perfect timing for Valentine’s Day, too!

Vitamin D in January?

Nutritional supplementation is often on my mind, especially since discovering how much better I feel taking the right Iron (three cheers for slow-release!). When local running celebrity Camille Heron shared this Competitor.com article about Vitamin D and its connection to athletic performance, I paid attention. I groove anything old-fashioned and not trendy that could help me feel better, work harder, and just live a fuller, richer life. Sunshine has always felt great, but reading a little science behind that was nice. PS- yesterday at the pharmacy, while grabbing an anti-inflammatory prescription for my stupid ankle, I refreshed my vitamin D supply. Thanks Camille!

Thanks for staying to chat, friends! Please let me know what you have found to read, whether online or in print. Let me know what YOU have written too! That would truly make my day.

Wishing you a deeply nourishing weekend. Talk soon.

I think of life as a good book.
The further you get into it,
the more it begins to make sense.
~Harold Kushner
XOXOXOXO