by LiveTrue Book Reviewer Brit McGinnis
As the COVID-19 pandemic rounds the corner to May, the-stay-at-home time continues to present an opportunity to re-evaluate our lives. What kind of homes have we created? What life choices have made us happiest? Least happy? When we come out of this, how will we have changed? How will our lives change?
The LiveTrue Book Collection encourages self-analysis. It has over 200 books to date, and promotes reflection, honesty, and awareness of ourselves and our world. Most of us now have the time for bonus reading. So why not dive into our inner worlds during this crazy time?
Check out this small sampling of just five books from the LiveTrue Collection that help do just that:
This is Not the Life I Ordered
In today’s unexpected world, orders from the government and health authorities alike seem to change every day, sometimes hour by hour. This is Not the Life I Ordered discusses how we can cope when life changes suddenly and forces us to adapt. The four accomplished women authors and friends tell powerful, candid stories of how they overcame difficulties in their lives, and found resiliency and faith moving forward.
During this time, we need to skillfully express feelings of love, including self-love. This classic self-help book describes how different people can have vastly different needs in terms of how they experience love. Do you feel loved when people perform acts of service? What about quality time, or physical touch? This book helps to give words to the “you just don’t get what I need” feelings that may come up during this period of isolation.
Junk: Digging Through America’s Love Affair With Stuff
Ugh. Nothing like quarantine to force us to see just how much stuff we’ve stacked up all these years. This book goes into the deep relationship people have with material possessions, from items you might find in a yard sale all the way to artists who use “junk” to create huge installations. Why do people hoard things in increasingly bigger houses? And why do we need all this stuff? This book helps us ask perfect questions when we look around our homes, which hold what we need, want, and why.
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
We’re definitely not seeing as much concern over “screen time” as we used to right now. In a particularly stressful time, it can feel easy to turn on reruns of MasterChef to turn off our brains for a little bit. But why do we feel compelled to do this at all? What are the payoffs for this behavior? Irresistible unpacks how devices with screens are designed to keep us hooked, and offers a quiz to help readers determine their level of addiction to technology. While we all depend on electronic devices to connect with people during this quarantine, this book can help us monitor how we can use these tools and keep them from controlling us.
Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City
Where would we be if our trash wasn’t picked up and hauled away regularly? Very badly off, as Picking Up tells us. Cities of all sizes need properly running sanitation systems to run well and stay healthy. An often unseen part of everyday life in a city, we would notice immediately if we couldn’t safely dispose of our waste. During this pandemic, Picking Up can help us tune in to how grateful we feel for the many services and people who provide them. Let it inspire you to thank sanitation and other essential workers and unsung heroes of our cities right now.
Check out the LiveTrue Collection Here for more good reading during this unprecedented time.
Brit McGinnis is an author and editor from Portland, OR. She writes on Medium, The Salve, and covers weird news for The Stacker. She was named a Hero of Haddonfield by the filmmakers behind Tales of Halloween in 2014.