November.

Good news friends. I am well on track to reach my 52 book goal. This month's reading put me up to 48 books. And I have already finished another two in this first week of December. Hooray. Here is what I read in November.

• Me Before You     (Jojo Moyes)     - There was a bunch of hype about this movie when it came out. Sometimes when there is hype about a story that is being made into a movie I think, "maybe I should read that book." I put it on hold at the library. It took like 6 months to get through the waiting list and get the book. I read it in less than 24 hours. It was about as sad as I was expecting. The ending was quite predictable. But it raises good questions about what it means to be human. Is the ability to make our own decisions what makes us feel human? Should we be able to make decisions for others or prevent them from making their own decisions when we disagree with the choice they want to make? 

• chasers of the light    (Tyler Knott Greyson)     - This is a book of poetry I have been wanting to read for a long time. One time I went on a long live twitter search of a Calgary Chapters looking for it. It is beautiful and I highly recommend reading it. The poems are from his typewriter series, meaning, of course, that he wrote them on a typewriter. In his words, "I loved the urgency; the particular inability to erase, edit, and alter that comes with using a typewriter; the uninterrupted stream of thoughts. I loved the way the pages reflected my mind: unfiltered and imperfect and honest." You can read my favourite poem from the book here.

• Daring Greatly     (Brené Brown)     - I have touched on this book a little bit in this post. It really deserves a whole post dedicated to it. I'm not sure when/if I will get that done. Maybe it would be better to wait until I have read it a second time. This book kind of kicked my ass so hard that I am still sort trying to pick up the pieces and make sense of my altered world. But please please read this book. Especially if you struggle with vulnerability, but even if you don't, still read it! I promise it will benefit you. We need to learn about and talk about shame and vulnerability. I promise there is something in this book for you. The chapter introduction for Chapter 3 (Understanding and Combating Shame) is "Vulnerability and shame in one book! Are you trying to kill us? or Defense Against the Dark Arts." She tells a story about how a guy once compared her to Snape and then they had a conversation about when Sirius told Harry about how everyone has dark and light inside of them and how that was kind shame and vulnerability. Seriously, what more could you want?