Top 5 Quick Reads
Life has become increasingly busy after 2020 slowed everything down. Businesses and schools have been racing to catch up to the loss of hard lockdown and it seems as if the world has hit a pace of superspeed, after just a few months of being confined to our own homes.
One thing’s for sure, reading has definitely taken a back seat in the past 2 years, especially with the variety of social media we have at our fingertips. Reading is a great way to help the body and mind wind down after a long day, so we’ve put together 5 of our top quick reads that can be finished over a day, or only need 5-10 minutes of reading every day.
The content below is extracted from the Book Summaries.
Create Your Own Calm by Meera Lee Patel
image: amazon.com
From the bestselling author of Start Where You Are comes a beautifully illustrated and integrative journal for easing the everyday anxieties, we all carry. Feeling anxious, uncertain, or overwhelmed? You're not alone. In this empowering new tool for self-care, popular artist and author Meera Lee Patel presents a fresh approach to feeling better. Designed to help us better understand and dial down the everyday worries getting in our way, these thoughtful and beautifully illustrated journal pages are a safe space for reflection, insight, and the freedom to move forward with more clarity and joy. Bringing together inspiring quotes from great thinkers and writers throughout history with engaging journal prompts and plenty of room to capture your thoughts, the book is a calming breath of fresh air and a quiet space to reflect and recharge in a hectic and uncertain world.
Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham
image: exclusivebooks.co.za
A New York Times Bestseller In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood, along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again. In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, "Did you, um, make it?" She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood ("Strangers were worried about me; that's how long I was single!"), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway ("It's like I had a fashion-induced blackout"). In "What It Was Like, Part One," Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay "What It Was Like, Part Two" reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her. Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she's aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls ("If you're meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you've already set the bar too high"), and she's a card-carrying REI shopper ("My bungee cords now earn points!"). Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cosy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and-of course-talking as fast as you can. Don't miss Lauren Graham's book of advice for graduates and reflections on staying true to yourself, in conclusion, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.
Love Poems for the Office by John Kenney
image: penguinrandomhouse.com
With the same brilliant wit and biting realism that made Love Poems for Married People, Love Poems for People with Children, and Love Poems for Anxious People such hits, John Kenney is back with a brand-new collection that tackles the hilarity of life in the office. From waiting in line for the printer and revising spreadsheet after spreadsheet, to lukewarm coffee, office politics, and the daily patterns of your most annoying–and lovable–coworkers, Kenney masterfully captures the warmth and humour of working the “9 to 5” in today’s modern era.
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
image: amazon.com
A devastating essay on loss and the people we love from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. 'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language' On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria. In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter's fierce love for a parent, and a revealing examination of the layers of loss and the nature of grief.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Illustrated Edition by Douglas Adams
image: amazon.com
'One of the greatest achievements in comedy. A work of staggering genius' - David Walliams Gorgeous 42nd Anniversary gift edition of Douglas Adams's pop-culture classic, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, stunningly illustrated throughout by Costa Award-winner Chris Riddell. It's an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur's best friend has just announced that he's an alien. At this moment, they're hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and a book inscribed in large, friendly letters: DON'T PANIC. The book is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the weekend has only just begun . . . Douglas Adams's mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with physics and twists time, but most importantly it's very, very funny.
Grab a coffee, get your parking spot in the school pick-up line and enjoy a few minutes immersed in a world that far extends the front seat of your car. There is time to read when these quick reads are on hand.
