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- Hey everyone, it's your girl Jenn.
And I thought that we would do a little midyear checkup
on the books that I've read.
And also books I'm about to read.
Reading has become my favorite way to pass the time,
unwind, to go to new worlds.
One of my big reading goals this year
was to diversify the books that I read,
because I tend to stay in my comfort zone.
This is why I am so stoked to be partnering with
Book of the Month.
They are a book service that is rapidly growing
and it's super popular and they want to unify
new and emerging authors with readers like us.
So the service gives out five banging book options
that were already sifted by a team
who go through 100s of books.
They give the best choices from a curated selection
of new and early release titles.
So that way, you can spend more time reading
and less time researching.
They also have the best price for new release fiction books,
which is awesome because
who doesn't love a great deal.
So out of the five books that they recommended,
I chose Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close.
I chose this book because
I have always loved and valued my friends.
They can be complex,
but they are so nourishing and so rewarding.
So I'm always trying to find ways
on how I can be a better friend.
Now, this book is about two friends
and it chronicles their 10 year friendship
and they share their pitfalls and their joys.
And I love reading about other people's relationships
because it makes me really reflect on mine.
I am so excited to read this
and I never would have heard about this,
unless I was a part of Book of the Month.
If you guys would like to start today,
you can get your first book for 9.99
with my July code JENNIM.
You can skip a month anytime
and you won't be charged.
So it's completely risk-free.
I will also leave all the info in the description box.
So make sure you check that out.
So my first book is The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz.
He is one of my favorite authors.
If you guys haven't read The Four Agreements,
you gotta read it right now.
It should be like mandatory reading for everybody in life.
And honestly, Mastery of Love is now
on that mandatory to read list.
So Mastery of Love talks about
how we can heal our emotional wounds.
I really love how clear he writes.
Like it's not just fluffy words
about like endless descriptions.
It's just straight to the point.
Anyone can read it and understand.
A chapter that really resonated with me,
was the one about our relationship with our bodies.
So my job is to film and make videos
and I'm always on camera.
And so this is categorized as a display profession.
So I find myself nitpicking a lot
about the way I look, about different changes in my body.
And during this quarantine, I have been extra.
There was a phase where I was just extra harsh on my body.
And he explains that once we have a kind and loving
and compassionate relationship with our bodies,
we can have fulfilling and nourished relationships
with the people around us.
And it makes complete sense.
The way we treat ourselves,
is how we treat the closest people in our lives.
If we are treating ourselves with patience and kindness,
then we're probably gonna treat everyone else the same way.
It really starts from within.
And this book has given me some extra clarity
on how I can be more kind to myself.
And it's making me closer to being the more reassured
and confident person that I want to become.
So my second book is Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Now as a double Virgo, this book is music to my ears.
It is the manifesto for motivation and productivity.
This is actually my second time reading this,
because I really needed something to light a fire of my ass.
And this book did just the trick.
So this book explains how
small incremental changes every day
can build into something great and remarkable.
So he explains that a habit is a routine
that just happens automatically.
And we spend 50 to 60% of our lives just through habits.
So if we're able to habit stack
and just build up good habits,
then you can live your life on autopilot
and still be so productive.
So one practice that I immediately implemented in my life
is called priming your environment.
Which is basically like a fancy way to say,
keep your space clean.
When you are doing something that you don't want to do.
Having an environment that is clean and tidy
is so motivating, it makes it attractive.
So now before I leave a room,
I make sure I prime it a little bit.
So I'll like fold up the clothes,
I'll push the chairs in, I'll wipe down the tables.
It literally just takes a couple of minutes.
So that way when I come back into the room,
it releases a feel good chemical out of my brain
and it makes me feel more motivated.
So my third book is called
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
I picked up this book because
I am deeply disturbed about the amount of people
that are addicted to their phones.
Now this is actually an addiction because
the tycoons of tech have purposely,
have intentionally made it addicting.
Cal Newport calls our phones, slot machines.
And it makes complete sense.
When we check our phone,
we're all secretly thinking the same thing.
We're thinking like oh my gosh, like, what did my post get?
Did I get likes?
Did I get comments?
Did I get a text back?
There's always something that we are hoping for.
And most of the time that number,
isn't the number that we were hoping for.
However, when it does, and you do get those likes,
you do get those comments.
It releases this huge rush of dopamine to your brain.
And when rewards like that are unpredictable,
it's more dopamine in your brain.
It makes it more addicting.
So it creates this cycle and this toxic relationship
that we have with our phones.
I've learned from this book that we are actually
in a solitude deprivation.
Solitude doesn't mean like being alone by yourself.
Like you can technically be in a room full of people,
but still find solitude.
Solitude is a subjective state of mind
where you don't let anything external input your mind.
It's like basically feeling your own frequency.
So, meditation is a form of solitude.
Writing is a form of solitude.
Even like walking outside.
This is something that so many people aren't aware of.
Like when was the last time you didn't have a podcast on,
or the TV on or a YouTube video?
Like when was the last time you just like sat
in your own stillness.
There is a direct correlation on why anxiety
and depression are at an all time high,
and how it parallels with the rise of
social media and technology.
It's just crazy.
Now I do realize that it may come off a little hypocritical
that someone who makes their living off social media
is telling you like that it's toxic.
But I find it quite opposite.
I feel like it's my duty to let you know
that you should probably have some limitations with it.
So now I wanna talk about Circe,
which was by far my favorite summer fiction book I've read.
I did not want it to end
because I have always been a freak for Greek mythology.
When I was growing up,
I loved learning about the gods
and I loved how they all had
their own little thing going on.
Now, this book is about Circe.
And Circe is the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun.
And within the gods and deities
there's like a huge hierarchy.
And Circe is at the bottom of the totem pole.
She's just the nymph, diamond doesn't.
She's truly an underdog like her mom doesn't like her,
her brothers and sisters don't like her.
Like, you're just rooting for her the entire time.
And she's just like always in the background at the feasts.
Like she's just, like she's very lonely.
I found myself identifying to Circe a lot because
I feel like a lot of us have felt like an outcast
or like you didn't fit in.
And that was pretty much Circe's life.
And this book is just,
it's very long because god's don't die.
And it's just so crazy to see the life
of an immortal creature.
This is also the book of the month
for my book club, curlupclub.
So if you'd like to read it,
there's going to be a discussion about it in July.
So make sure you check it out if you're interested.
For my thriller selection,
I have Woman in the Window.
Now, if you like Girl on the Train,
you're gonna love Woman in the Window.
It's definitely similar vibes in the sense that,
the main character is an alcoholic woman.
So she makes for an unreliable narrator.
Like you don't know if she's telling the truth or not.
It makes the plot thicken.
So the story follows a woman named Anna Fox
who has agoraphobia.
Which means that she is terrified to leave her own house.
Which I find it very fitting with the times again.
But she is also an online therapist.
So she spends all of her time
just chatting with her clients.
She also slams back bottles of Merlot,
and she also loves to spy on her neighbors.
So this just makes this book a recipe for drama.
And one night she sees something super sus
and I'll just leave it at that.
If you love thrillers,
you're gonna love this book.
I feel like thrillers are what made me hooked onto reading,
especially as an adult.
Because thrillers have the ability to make you just
wanna turn one more page.
And this book definitely does that.
So my next book is called
Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates.
I talked about this book in a previous vlog,
but I just wanted to talk about it again because
I finished it and I found it very, very poignant.
I think with the whole resurgence of
the black lives matter movement,
I wanted to make sure that I had more black perspectives
that could give me a better understanding
of how I can support and how I can be a better ally.
So Between the World and Me is,
in the form of a letter to his 15 year old son.
Coates describes his perspective on growing up
as a black man in America.
And how fear and violence were ingrained in him
at such a young age.
And these two aspects have been passed down
from generation after generation after generation.
If you think about it,
slavery wasn't abolished that long ago.
Like Coates' grandma was enslaved.
And she was freed,
but she was still enslaved.
And so we think that it's something from
like a distant past,
but it actually wasn't that long ago.
The act of enslaving an entire race
will absolutely have its consequences.
Which explains where we are today.
Regardless, this book was just a very honest
and intimate testimony.
I feel like these days it's so easy to get numb
with statistics and numbers,
but I really appreciated just focusing on one specific life.
So next up I have Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
This was a book I wanted to pick up because
I just wanted to learn more about
the criminal justice system and how flawed it is.
So I was first exposed to Brian Stevenson
when I read the memoir,
The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton.
Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death row
for a crime he did not commit.
Like it was so blatant that he didn't freaking commit it.
There was so many things that
he had like an alibi and everything,
but he was still just sentenced to death row.
And he was in there for 30 years.
And once Brian Stevenson became his lawyer
and defended him, he was freed.
And so Brian Stevenson does this laborist humanitarian work.
He created the Equal Justice Initiative,
which is a law firm that defends people
who are voiceless and are wrongfully incarcerated.
And so Just Mercy is about one of his very first cases.
Now this book is also a film
and I believe like Michael B. Jordan is in that film.
So if you aren't committed on reading the book,
I highly recommend the film.
So my next book is called Me by Elton John.
Now I was never like the biggest Elton John fan.
Like I've enjoyed his hits like Bennie and the Jets
and Candle in the Wind,
but I didn't know that much about him.
But now, I know everything that he has disclosed.
And honestly, this book is so freaking funny.
Elton John, I don't know,
just the way he writes is so hilarious.
It's very dry self-deprecating and super honest,
Elton John's life was so extra.
He has so many stories from legends like Andy Warhol,
Bob Dylan, George Harrison, John Lennon, Michael Jackson,
Princess Diana, Richard Gere, Madonna.
Like he has stories about everybody
and it's not even him just like name dropping.
It's just like his life.
And these were his peers.
I loved reading about his growth as well
from overcoming addiction, from substance abuse,
food addiction, sex addiction, all that stuff.
And yeah, he's just lived
an incredibly colorful and full life.
And just doesn't hold back.
Even, if you aren't of Elton John fan,
I would recommend this book
because it is freaking interesting.
So my next book is called When Breath Becomes Air.
Now this was a book that was recommended by a ton of y'all.
So thank you so much for your suggestion.
I found it incredibly moving.
This memoir is about a neurosurgeon named Paul
and he's spent so much of his life working up
to become one of the best neurosurgeons ever.
And his life came to a halting crash
when he got diagnosed with stage four lung cancer
at the age of 36.
This memoir made me feel very introspective
about what the purpose of my life is,
how I want to make a difference in the world.
And it's because Paul thinks about all these things,
and this is what happens
I guess when your days are numbered
and you really have to hone in on what your values are.
If you're looking for a book that
focuses on love and family
and about the fragility of life,
I would recommend this memoir.
So my final book is called Clothes, Music and Boys.
And this is Viv Albertine memoir.
And she is from the iconic punk band, The Slits.
Now this memoir just breathed life into their music.
And it just really showed me their contribution
to the punk scene,
and how they really put their foot in the door
for the feminist movement.
I love the fact that Viv Albertine is from Muswell Hill,
which is actually the city that Ben and I fell in love with.
He was living in Muswell Hill when I met him.
And just so just reading about the neighborhood
was really trippy.
Cause I was like oh my gosh,
like maybe I passed by there.
So yeah, Viv is obsessed with clothes, music and boys
which are themes that I am also interested in.
And her life is just super interesting because
she was able to see and control to the punk movement.
Like her boyfriend was Mick Jones of The Clash
and she was also like really close with Sid Vicious
from the Sex Pistols.
And so it was just very, very interesting
to get like of close and personal view
of what it was like to be in the times.
All right guys, that is a wrap for this video.
I hope you guys enjoyed.
As always, please write down any book
that you enjoyed or would love to read
in the comments down below.
I love reading it down there.
It's my favorite way to connect with you guys.
But yeah, I wanna thank you guys
so much for watching and I'll see you guys
in the next one, bye.
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