January 4, 2019

Interesting Reads

Design Your Next Chapter, Happy: The Journal
These are a few interesting books we enjoyed reading Design Your Next Chapter, Happy: The Journal, Rick Mercer Final Report, Saints and Misfits, Written in the Stars, and Thousand Splendid Suns. We also read a few inspiring Biographies in DK Life Stories.

The stories and advice on the Design Your Next Chapter by Debbie Travis will give ideas to those who feel they have lost track of who they are and what they want to be. Those going through jobs that no longer satisfy them or feel they have reached the end of a learning curve will find the stories in this book inspiring. There were a lot of reminders and important points shared in this book - here is a summary. 

When we are living lives full of obligations, sometimes we lack happiness and forget there is more to life than daily routine. This is the time to remember that dreams belong purely to us, and are not locked by demands of careers, marriage, and parenting. Accumulating money and power should not be the definition of a successful life and the book reminds us how important balance is to our overall happiness.


Passion has peaks and lows, which changes with age and simplest ideas bring the most happiness. So make time to have fun and play to rekindle what you like doing. 

  • Writing down gives clarity. 
  • Pin up things that inspire you and see it everyday so you can see how it overlaps each other. 
  • If social media bothers you and makes you depressed stop using it, and spend time seeking out and getting inspiration in real stories. 
  • Uncomfortable emotions help create energy, so we need  to calculate the risks by weighing in what is at stake, time, effort, and money. 
  • Imbalance in mind, emotions, and body should not dominate life, we have to do new adventures outside our comfort zone to reignite joy. 
Happy: The Journal is a retreat from the stresses of everyday life, a place to work through our problems and confide worries, fears, and secrets. It offers a chance to focus on life's positive aspects and find things that make us happy. Each page of this daily journal is filled with new ideas, creative prompts, and words of wisdom that will help write a little joy into every day of the year. The ideal place to express what's happening in our life to unlock inner happiness. 
dk stories
DK Life Stories is a series of books that we enjoyed reading and learning from. These biographical books share stories behind inspiring personalities. Children and adults will enjoy reading facts about the lives of incredible people from history. The colour photographs and hand-drawn illustrations are inviting and engaging. We found these books easy to read, and like how it summarizes incidents and important moments in history. It is a good way to gain knowledge of historical moments and how these significant people have contributed towards it. We checked out biographies of four people - Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, and Katherine Johnson.

Rick Mercer Final Report written by Rick Mercer is interesting to read, as it includes never-before-published rants from the last five seasons of the show, plus a selection of the best rants from earlier years. It is a good book with political humour that makes you think. 


Saints and Misfits by S. K. Ali is a novel that keeps the reader wondering what will happen to the characters, making us curious to find out what happens. We enjoyed how well the author describes the situations, characters, their thinking, and setting. This book will be enjoyed by youth and adults.

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed brought me to tears. The main character Naila falls in love with a boy, and when her parents find out, her whole life changes. Her parent's solution was to take her "back home" and get her married without her consent. She was born and raised for seventeen years in Florida, and never been to Pakistan. They end up getting her forcefully married, and the man she marries was not aware of this. Many lives get affected and get hurt. Read to see what happens, and how they come out of this conflict. 

Although this novel was a fiction, I was happy the author included an epilogue with a happy, satisfying ending for the reader. Marriage is a leap of faith - it should not be forced by parents that silence many girls that suffer emotionally and get abused. This novel makes the reader aware of these situations, and how we can help these women. 

Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is about Mariam, a girl born out of marriage and the hardship she goes through from being forced to marry an elderly man, the abuse she goes through for not having children, dealing with war, and how her life changes when her husband marries Laila, a young girl. This well written book will bring out emotions in the reader, and feel empathy towards women in these countries and how war changes lives. 

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2010 - 2019. Please Ask First Disclosure: Please note that all opinions and thoughts expressed are my own. 

39 comments:

  1. Thanks for the introduction to these wonderful book !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the list of books. I was looking for a new book for January.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks looking forward to enjoying these books soon !

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'd like to read Rick Mercer Final Report. He's so funny.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Design Your Next Chapter by Debbie Travis sounds terrific!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rick Mercer Final Report sounds interesting I did enjoy some of his shows!

    ReplyDelete
  7. look like great books I would love to read!

    ReplyDelete
  8. All of these sound like they would be interesting to me. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Design Your Next Chapter sound interesting to start 2019 !

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Journal sound like a book my daughter would enjoy !

    ReplyDelete
  11. We love DK books in our home from kid to adult.I would like to read DK Life Stories.

    ReplyDelete
  12. These books all sound so interesting

    ReplyDelete
  13. love to read them all! great books!

    ReplyDelete
  14. The Biographies sounds very interesting

    ReplyDelete
  15. Would love to enjoy them all sometime !

    ReplyDelete
  16. I would love to read Rick Mercer Final Report.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Written in the Stars sounds like an interesting story

    ReplyDelete
  18. would be good read! Interesting books!

    ReplyDelete
  19. We love DK books. So many options to read.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks for sharing,what a wonderful selection of books !

    ReplyDelete
  21. Love to read the never-before-published rants by Rick Mercer.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Happy: The Journal sounds interesting who wouldn't want a retreat from the stresses of everyday life

    ReplyDelete
  23. they are all great books! The Journal one intrests me!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Martin Luther King Jr.sure sounds interesting to read!

    ReplyDelete
  25. love to read them all, the Rick Mercer book would be great read!

    ReplyDelete
  26. I love reading about the lives of incredible people !

    ReplyDelete
  27. I've heard about Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed from others. It sounds great.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Love your review of Written in the Stars,looking forward to reading it !

    ReplyDelete
  29. These all sound really interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  30. I'd lve to read Rick Mercer Final Report.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Thanks for the reviews - there are some great sounding books in these collections

    ReplyDelete
  32. Design Your Next Chapter by Debbie Travis sounds so interesting !

    ReplyDelete
  33. I'm looking for to enjoying DK Life Stories

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anything that takes us away from the stresses of everyday life is nice sometimes!

    ReplyDelete
  35. all great books, would really be interested in .. Happy: The Journal

    ReplyDelete
  36. These sound like interesting, informative and thought-provoking books. Thanks for letting us know about them.

    ReplyDelete
  37. So many interesting books! I'd like to read them all.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting :)