By Indie Authors for Indie Authors.

Category: 2016 Sticky Books (Page 2 of 9)

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

furiously-happy jenny lawson

Furiously Happy

 

by Jenny Lawson

 

In recent years I have become somewhat of an advocate for increased dialogue and understanding around mental illness. This has been by no grand design of my own, it just sort of came to pass. I have written about my own mental illness here and spoken about it here. I even wrote about a fictional recreation of my mental illness here in the story “Dies Cum Anxieta.” 

I was delighted when earlier this year I came across Jenny Lawson’s “Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things.” It has been somewhat of a rallying cry for those with mental illness. From a Wall Street Journal article earlier this year: “On her book tour this fall, even her most anxious and agoraphobic fans have turned out in droves, confessing their secrets, connecting with kindred spirits and letting loose…A typical event feels like a raucous support-group meeting conducted by the funniest stand-up comedian in town.”

Lawson’s book is funny and sad and hopeful and painful and heartfelt and loving and laugh-out-loud hysterical. 

 

 

“Don’t sabotage yourself. There are plenty of other people willing to do that for free.”

 

“Like my grandmother always said, “Your opinions are valid and important. Unless it’s some stupid bullshit you’re being shitty about, in which case you can just go fuck yourself.”

 

“I can tell you that “Just cheer up” is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It’s pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to “just walk it off.” Some people don’t understand that for a lot of us, mental illness is a severe chemical imbalance rather than just having “a case of the Mondays.” Those same well-meaning people will tell me that I’m keeping myself from recovering because I really “just need to cheer up and smile.” That’s when I consider chopping off their arms and then blaming them for not picking up their severed arms so they can take them to the hospital to get reattached.”

 

“I can’t think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.”

 

“Don’t make the same mistakes that everyone else makes. Make wonderful mistakes. Make the kind of mistakes that make people so shocked that they have no other choice but to be a little impressed.”

 

“There will be moments when you have to be a grown-up. Those moments are tricks. Do not fall for them.”

 

“Last month, as Victor drove me home so I could rest, I told him that sometimes I felt like his life would be easier without me. He paused a moment in thought and then said, “It might be easier. But it wouldn’t be better.”

 

“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.”

 

“You don’t have to go to some special private school to be an artist. Just look at the intricate beauty of cobwebs. Spiders make them with their butts.”

 

“If you put a bunch of chameleons on top of a bunch of chameleons on top of a bowl of Skittles what would happen? Is that science? Because if so, I finally get why people want to do science.”

 

“I wish someone had told me this simple but confusing truth: Even when everything’s going your way you can still be sad. Or anxious. Or uncomfortably numb. Because you can’t always control your brain or your emotions even when things are perfect.”

 

“We wish you a merry Christmas” is the most demanding song ever. It starts off all nice and a second later you have an angry mob at your door scream-singing, “Now bring us some figgy pudding and bring it RIGHT HERE. WE WON’T GO UNTIL WE GET SOME SO BRING IT RIGHT HERE.” Also, they’re rhyming “here” with “here.” That’s just sloppy. I’m not rewarding unrequested, lazy singers with their aggressive pudding demands.”

 

“I’m having one of those rare days where I love people and all of the amazing wonder they’re capable of and if someone fucks that up for me I will stab them right in the face.”

 

“Don’t compare your insides with someone else’s outsides.”

 

“The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday”

 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Douglas Adams books

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 

by Douglas Adams

 

With the BBC’s release of an eight episode series of Douglas Adams’s 1987 novel “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency“, a book I have yet to read, but need to do so on the quick given the hilariously thought-provoking premise, it reminded me how much I have always enjoyed Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” I don’t have much to say about this wonderfully, zany novel that won’t be better said by the quotes. So let’s get right to it.

 

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”

 

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”

 

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

 

 

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

 

 

[clickToTweet tweet=”“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” – Douglas Adams #StickyBooks #AmReading” quote=”“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”]

 

 

“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”

 

“The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.”

 

“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”

 

“Ford!” he said, “there’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.”

 

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

 

“So this is it,” said Arthur, “We are going to die.”
“Yes,” said Ford, “except… no! Wait a minute!” He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur’s line of vision. “What’s this switch?” he cried.
“What? Where?” cried Arthur, twisting round.
“No, I was only fooling,” said Ford, “we are going to die after all.”

 

 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

 

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

 

by Stieg Larsson

 

Keeping with our recent run of thrillers (and back to back Sticky Books whose title begins “The Girl”), the opening book of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series is fantastic. You may have seen or heard about either the Swedish movie adaption or the U.S. adaption, but if you haven’t read this book, forget what you have previously seen or heard about this book. 

Larsson does any amazing job with this book. It’s suspenseful, horrifying, and exciting. You’re left guessing what will happen next from the very first page. If you’re in need of a new thriller series and haven’t read this yet, it’s time to pick it up. I read it about a decade ago and it still pops into my head from time to time, which is everything we could ask for from a Sticky Book. (The ongoing fight regarding book rights between his family and his longtime partner of 32 years is a fascinating side lesson in intellectual property rights, inheritance laws, and common law marriage too.)

 

“Friendship- my definition- is built on two things. Respect and trust. Both elements have to be there. And it has to be mutual. You can have respect for someone, but if you don’t have trust, the friendship will crumble.”

 

 

“It did no good to cry, she had learned that early on. She had also learned that every time she tried to make someone aware of something in her life, the situation just got worse. Consequently it was up to her to solve her problems by herself, using whatever methods she deemed necessary.”

 

“The media have the ability to attract the craziest people to call in perfectly absurd tips. Every newsroom in the world gets updates from UFOlogists, graphologists, scientologists, paranoiacs, and every sort of conspiracy theorist.”

 

“There’s always someone willing to believe malicious rumours.”

 

“It doesn’t matter how good the enemy’s weapons are. If he can’t see you, he can’t hit you. Cover, cover, cover. Make sure you’re never exposed.”

 

“Everyone has secrets. It’s just a matter of finding out what they are.”

 

“No, I don’t believe in God, but I respect the fact that you do. Everyone has to have something to believe in.”

 

 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Girl on the Train Quotes

 

The Girl on the Train

 

by Paul Hawkins

 

I apologize for my absence over the last few weeks. Apparently having a baby is a lot of work! Why didn’t anybody tell me?! I would like to say we’re back on track, but, well, we’ll see…

I read this book last year. My wife flew through it in a weekend and I quickly picked it up after her. It was a perfect suspense read between other more thought-provoking books. Let me say- female authors are crushing the psychological thriller genre. Gillian Flynn. Lauren Beukes. Now Paula Hawkins. I’m sure there are a slew of others I haven’t gotten to yet. These ladies know how to keep me on the edge of my seat. (Who am I missing friends?) This book has stuck with me since I read it last year.

 

“It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.”

 

“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.”

 

“Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps”

 

“There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home.”

 

“I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it.”

 

“But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them.”

 

“I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head.”

 

“There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion.”

 

“And I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away.”

 

“I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere.”

 

 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2023 Nothing Any Good

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑