EEDA Newsletter Vol 6, Res 17: The Book of Alchemy
This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!
Hi friends! Happy Pride! The thing that is keeping me going right now is that my plumeria is blooming. This is only the second time it has bloomed since my mother brought it to me from a grower on Maui in 2015. The first bloom was in 2020 and now it is blooming again, five years later. The thing is: plumeria don’t survive in Oakland and definitely not indoors in Oakland. But we never told the plant that and we’ve cared for her as if she has the same potential as anywhere else and behold:
Don’t forget to check out the most recent EEDA Pod episode: Taking What's Best: A Guide to Self-Help
In this episode of “Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice,” Patricia and Nicole discuss how to read self-help effectively. They delve into their views on self-help books, highlighting the trap of constant improvement and sharing methods for effectively integrating helpful insights into daily life. They discuss the importance of discerning valuable advice from what's not relevant, and the need to actively apply self-help tips rather than just consuming them passively. Additionally, they reflect on personal experiences and the significance of their annual cherry-picking tradition.
You can find our show, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. You can also support the show on Patreon, where we have some perks for paid subscribers with even more coming this year. You can also just make a recurring donation through subscribing to our Patreon, as our show is independently run and without ads. It helps keep us going!
It’s another resource week and I’m feeling overwhelmed, so I’m going to share a book recommendation I first published with Book Riot.
The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad
This book recommendation is for the journalers, the aspirational journalers, and folks who just like to hear a good story. I am a journaler in my heart, that is, I have journaling aspirations. I have failed dozens of times over the years to form a journaling habit, though I do write a newsletter regularly so it kind of depends on your definition of journaling. Personally, I do not count it as actual journaling for myself. I’ve tried free-writing, prompts, guided journals, morning pages, you name it. Like many folks, I’ve built up in my mind what I think journaling should be and today’s recommendation has opened me up to new journaling possibilities. I had a lot of reservations going into this read and I ended up enjoying it immensely.
There are a lot of big and often tough subjects discussed in this book, especially cancer given the primary author’s experiences. I say primary author because this is actually a collection of short essays with prompts along a theme. It is not a guided journal and it is not merely a book of “writing prompts.” It lies somewhere in the blending of both, yet so much more. Each contributor shares something, usually something personal or that they are personally connected to, in a range of essay forms. Then each offers the reader a chance for reflection as related to that story in the form of a specific prompt that is born from the short personal essay, memory, imagining, etc. the contributor has shared. The idea is to think and journal creatively and not just recount your day or your week or your dreams, though if that is what you do and you enjoy it, then that’s cool too, of course.
An example of an entry is one by food writer Jenny Rosenstrach where she writes about a time where she planned to cook something lovely for dinner. Unexpectedly, she and her husband received a call and had to hop in the car on a long drive to be present for a loved one in hospice. She writes about what she decided to do with the planned dinner (Make it? Save it for the future?) and how it affected the heavy road trip. The prompt is something like “Write about a time when food was more than just sustenance for you.” There are so many great contributors and one of the things I loved about this book is that not every contributor is primarily a writer, like Jon Batiste, who is also the spouse of the author. Other contributors include Salman Rushdie, John Green, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Ashley C. Ford, and many more.
Recent & Current Reads
Inclusion of a book in this section is not necessarily a recommendation and these books won’t always be added to my Bookshop. Links are affiliate links.
Recently Read:
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
Currently Reading:
Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders (out 8/19)
Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (out 6/24)
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
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