At the Library: Books to inspire in 2020

By LeAnn Kunz

As we turn the page on our calendars for another year and another decade, many of us feel pressure to make grand resolutions to get in shape, to start a new hobby, to be a better you, etc., etc., etc. Every TV commercial, magazine article, and blog or podcast can make us feel more guilty than inspired. If you are one of those people who truly does want to find a way to refresh your life in this new year, but do not want to feel forced into a workout, regime, or class that you won't sustain for the whole year, the Washington Public Library can help. Yes, we do have lots of books on society's latest fad diets and workouts if you are into that sort of thing, but we also have some gentler, more-forgiving books that can inspire you just by reading them. Here are some titles that you can find on the second level in our new non-fiction section that might help your overall happiness and health, mentally and physically, in 2020.

Own Your Everyday: Overcome the Pressure to Prove by Jordan Lee Dooley encourages you to own your current life, your quirks, your struggles, and everything that makes you who you are. Dooley dishes out lots of simple advice for our daily struggles. 'You don't scare me. I'm thankful for you because you will be a lesson that will shape me into who I'll become.”

No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters by the classic author Ursula LeGuin collects the best of Ursula's blog, presenting essays on what matters to her now, often her thoughts on aging, including her concerns and wonder with today's world. Her humor shines. 'If I'm ninety and believe I'm forty-five, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.”

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize stress, manage emotions, and live a more joyful life. Nagoski will help ease your troubled mind. 'Relax your belly. It's supposed to be round. The Bikini Industrial Complex has been gaslighting you.”

Dark Skies by Valerie Stimac is a comprehensive guide to astrotourism. It includes guides to 35 dark-sky sites and national parks, where to see the aurora, the next decade of total solar eclipses and how to view rocket launches, plus information on commercial space flight, observatories and meteor showers. This might change the whole way you look at your every day (or should I say every night) world!

Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create by Philippa Stanton will help you fully appreciate what is around you, opening all your senses to the beauty you may not notice every day, and showing you how to capture it. This book seems like the perfect way to live your life screen-free this year.

First You Write a Sentence by Joe Moran is the book I am currently reading and absolutely loving. Although this is a book about writing, it also truly about life. Joe Moran cites the Tim Ingold theory that 'humans live and give their lives meaning by making lines (and) a sentence is a line of words.” I have found myself rereading whole sections because they are often so poignant. I will certainly be recommending this to members of the Washington Writers' Workshop but also to all human beings. We all use words to communicate with our daily emails, letters, texts, and to-do lists and also to simply speak to each other. 'The sentence is where we make the briefest of senses out of this mad, beautiful, befuddling mess: life.”

Happy 2020 reading!