For months, people kept telling me to read James. Three different people whose taste I trust, independently of each other. I resisted anyway, because retellings and I have a complicated history. Too often they lean on the original like a crutch and add nothing of their own. Then I finally gave in, and you can probably guess how this ends: James is the best book I have read this year, and it is not close.
What James is about
James tells the story of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but this time we hear it from Jim. Or rather from James, which is the whole point. The enslaved man who drifts through Twain’s novel as a kind-hearted sidekick gets his own voice here, and what a voice it is: educated, dry, precise. And hidden. Around white people, James speaks exactly the way they expect him to speak, and the gap between how he talks and how he thinks creates more tension than most thrillers I know. We read Twain at school in German translation, and I mostly remember the whitewashed fence and nothing at all about Jim. Which is, I think, exactly the point Everett is making.
What surprised me most is how funny this book is. Really funny, in the middle of horror, and Everett never lets one cancel out the other. There is a scene about getting hold of a pencil, just a pencil, that carries more weight than entire chapters of other novels. I had to put the book down a few times to breathe. I mean that as the highest compliment I can give.
Why you should read the book
You do not need to know Huckleberry Finn. James stands completely on its own. If anything, it made me want to go back to the original and argue with it. The book has won more or less every prize there is, including the Pulitzer, and for once I have no objections at all.
The books that stay with me longest are the ones that make me sit with a perspective I do not live in. They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery did that with journalism. James does it with fiction, and it reminded me why I believe that authors can change the world, one reader at a time.
Have you read it? Please tell me in the comments, because I finished it weeks ago and I still need to talk about it.
Amsterdam and books, for me that is a love story with a very concrete starting point. A few years ago I was in the city for a day, it started raining (of course it did), I fled into the nearest bookshop and walked out with Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell. That one impulse buy later sent me all the way to Scotland to run a bookshop myself for a week. So you could say Amsterdam bookshops have a lot to answer for.
After my lists for The Hague and Haarlem, Amsterdam was overdue anyway. All five places are in the city centre, you can easily walk from one to the next, and together they make a perfect plan for a rainy day. So: for most days.
1. The American Book Center: book shop
Let me start with my favourite. The American Book Center on the Spui sells English books only, three floors of them, and has been run by the same family since 1972. What gets me every time are the handwritten staff recommendations tucked between the shelves. Last time I went in to buy one specific book as a present. I left 45 minutes later with three books for myself and without the present. It is that kind of shop.
2. Athenaeum Boekhandel: book shop and news centre
Directly next door. Which is dangerous. Athenaeum is the more serious, more beautiful sibling: international literature, art books, translated fiction you will not stumble over anywhere else. Attached to it is the Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum with newspapers and magazines from all over the world. When I had just moved to the Netherlands and missed reading in my own language, a shop like this felt like a small lifeline. It still does, a bit.
3. Waterstones: book shop
Yes, a British chain, I know. I do not care!! Four floors in a gorgeous old building on Kalverstraat, and nobody looks at you strangely if you sit down in a corner with a pile of books and stay there. The children’s section upstairs is the best I have seen in this country. If you need a present for a small reader, this is where you go.
4. The Book Exchange: second-hand book shop
A canal-side second-hand shop on Kloveniersburgwal, in business since 1978, with tens of thousands of English titles sorted into wonderfully specific categories. It smells exactly the way an old bookshop should smell. I normally have a rule not to buy more books than I can carry home comfortably. This shop is where that rule goes to die.
5. Scheltema: book shop and café
The largest bookshop in the Netherlands, right on the Rokin: five floors, a couple of hundred thousand books, its own café and even a floor with second-hand books. Most of it is Dutch, but the English sections are big enough to keep you busy for a long while. My routine: collect a small tower of candidates, carry it to the café, order a coffee and pretend I will only buy half of them. I never do.
And because I apparently cannot count to five: Evenaar on the Singel sells nothing but travel literature, and Architectura & Natura on Leliegracht is the place for architecture and nature books. Both small, both lovely.
Have I missed your favourite place in Amsterdam? Tell me in the comments. My list of reasons to go back is already long, one more will not hurt.
An exclusive early look at Gero Wenderholm’s debut novel Manfred Mi Amor – a hilarious, heartfelt romantic comedy about modern dating, apps, spreadsheets, and a very unconventional Amor. Due out summer 2026.
Have you ever tried to optimise your love life with a spreadsheet? Or sent the exact same opening message to seventeen different people on a dating app, convinced that A/B testing your way to romance was a perfectly reasonable strategy? If even a tiny part of you has nodded along just now, then Manfred Mi Amor was written for you. And yes, I mean that as a compliment.
I was lucky enough to get an exclusive early look at this debut novel by Hamburg-based author Gero Wenderholm, and I have to say: it is one of the most fun, unexpectedly moving, and thoroughly modern takes on the chaos of dating that I have read in a very long time. Manfred Mi Amor is due out in summer 2026, and if you are even remotely interested in funny books about love, romantic comedies with real heart, or simply a good laugh at the absurdity of modern dating culture, put this one on your radar right now.
This year, I have decided to not set any goals for my online shop or any other business/ project I have and to just do whatever I feel like doing in my free time. Since I have made that decision, I find myself reading more than I used to last year and it makes me very happy. Finding new stories, listening to unknown voices and learning is something I thoroughly enjoy. So here are the books I read in February:
For the last six or seven years, I have been reading more and more non-fiction books. They are, for me, the perfect way to learn about a new topic without getting lost in too much information or an abundance of webpages. In February, I read eight non-fiction books:
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
Caitlin Doughty tells about her work as a mortician and crematory employee. While the book provides detailed descriptions of what happens to you once you are dead, the book also points out how detached we are, as a Western society, from death and dead people. Doughty makes a case for letting death and talking about it become a part of our lives, thus making the thought of dying and everything that comes with it less scary and taboo. Doughty also has a youtube-channel called Ask a Mortician where she answers questions and gives more insight into her work. I will write a more detailed review of this book as I feel it raised a lot of thoughts and things I would like to write about.
Bleaker House by Nell Stevens
The book has a subtitle: How Far Would you Travel to Become a Writer? And Nell Stevens sets out to answer this question with a trip to the Falkland Islands. More specific Bleaker Island. A place where roughly two people live, next to animals and nothing else. Stevens, aching to write a novel, applies for a scholarship that allows her to spend time anywhere she wants. And while her colleagues choose Spain, Indonesia, or Sweden – Stevens wants to spend her time far, far away from anyone. She spends three months on the Falkland Islands and tries to write the novel that would make her name. I enjoyed reading her book because I read it at a time during which I also longed for solitude. No internet, no human interaction, no distractions and I could relate a lot to her wish and hopes. But also because the idea of being so far off the grid just sounds amazing and I would love to do it one day. It also made me wonder how many really remote places there are still in the world. Untouched nature, wilderness, and stillness.
The Nature About Nature. Why We Need the Wild by Enric Sala
Encouraged by Steven´s book, I started reading Sala´s book by the end of the month. Sala, the founder of The National Geographic Pristine Seas project, explains why we, as humans, need wild animals, untouched seas, and more protected nature. It shows the connection between ecological diversity and economical success. While the book paints a rather dark picture of the future and the impact humans have on animals and nature, it also shows what has to be done to make a change and to stop the destruction of our planet. Reading the book made me want to learn more about our nature, and projects that fight for more protected oceans. But also, to understand how I can make a difference and put pressure on politicians. I will keep you updated on this and write a more detailed review of the book.
What We´re Told Not to Talk About (But We´re Going to Anyway) by Nimko Ali
Orgasms, periods, menopause, pregnancy – four topics the majority of women do not talk about on a regular basis, if at all. In her book What we´re told not to talk about (but we´re going to anyway) Nimko Ali sets out to listen to women from “East London to Ethiopia” tell their story and what it means to be pregnant or have your first orgasm. I did enjoy reading the book, mostly because it led to good conversations with my boyfriend and my friend Jule. However, it was lacking intersectionality and it did leave me with a bitter taste about womanhood and what it means to be a woman. You can read my review here.
Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen aber wissen sollten by Alice Hasters and exit RACISM by Tupkoa Ogette
I found the books by Hasters and Ogette very similar, and equally important. Both women write about racism, in Germany but also in society as a whole. The books are aimed at white readers and how we, as white people, need to finally acknowledge our privileges. Hasters and Ogette share very personal experiences with Anti-Black racism and how it has, and still is, impacting their lives. I can recommend both books to anyone who wants to leave their privileged “Happyland”, as Ogette calls it, and make the world a fairer world by understanding how we are all socialized in a racist society.
Anti-Racist Ally. An Introduction to Action & Activism by Sophie William
Sophie William´s book is a very short, yet precise, introduction to terms about racism. You can read it in less than an hour and it is recommended to anyone who is not familiar with terms such as “race pay gap”, “tone policing” and “redlining”. Every week, Williams asks her Instagram-followers what they have done that week to fight racism. A question we must ask ourselves!
The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma
And now to the worst book, I have read so far ever: The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma aka The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Uagh. I absolutely hated this book for several reasons and it sparked a whole blog series I am about to start this month. So look out for it if you want. I will also write a review of this book and what I think is wrong with it. Until then, let me just say, that I found the book even worse than Jordan B. Peterson´s 12 Rules for Life and that means a lot.
Review Fiction books
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I got this book from my dear friend Jule and she said it was one of her reading highlights last year, so I was of course curious. And boy, the book did not disappoint. I found myself rushing through the pages, wanting to know what will happen next. I even cried at times as the words touched me so much. A little Life – many say it is the story of four friends and their life. While this is true, the story is mostly about violence, abuse, and how to live with it. Some people call it “violence porn” and I understand why. However, I think you can read graphic violence and still call the book “a good book”. It is also a book that many people either hated or loved. It seems like there is nothing in between.
S (Ship of Theseus) by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
This book has been on my shelves for years and it always felt intimidating to me. But I have read it now for my book club and can say that I am happy I finally did. Not because I enjoyed it tremendously, but because it is a whole different reading experience. You basically read two stories: S (the main story) and The Ship of Theseus which takes place in the margins of the book: a conversation between two readers, strangers at first who connect through the book S, and the search for the author´s identity. The book contains postcards, letters, drawings, and maps – all adding to the reading experience. Or taking your attention away from the story. The book raises questions such as “Can you separate work from the author?”, “How much of the own life does a writer really add to a story?” and most interesting to me “Is it necessary to know anything about the author to understand its work?”. We will have the book club discussion next weekend and I am curious o hear what my friends think about it.
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
This book read like a lengthy newspaper article. It is based on a true story about a crime that took place in 2013: Sasha, 18 years old and identifying as agender, is riding a bus, sleeping when Richard sets their skirt on fire. The book tells about Sasha´s identity and raises the question if Richard´s crime was a hate crime. And while the book does not give a clear answer, I found it interesting to think about how media portrays crime, in general, but also in this particular case.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
This was the first book I read by Gyasi and I absolutely enjoyed it. Gyasi tells the story of a mother and daughter. A family torn apart, but united at the same time, by drugs and depression. A father who leaves the family, a daughter who is trying to keep her mother alive while finding her way in an academic world. I enjoyed the way it was written and that it touched upon so many different topics in a raw, honest way.
Im Park der prächtigen Schwestern (Las Malas) by Camila Sosa Villada
Another book I´ve read for one of my book clubs. Sosa Villada tells the story of trans women in Argentina in the late 1980s and 90s. The book feels very realistic at times. I guess that is the case because Camila Sosa Villada herself is a trans woman who experienced many things mentioned in the book. I enjoyed the story but I did not fully enough the way of writing. The magical realism-passages felt out of place to me, but some of my friends really liked them. The book is full of violence, heart brake and tales of prostitution and survival. It definitely gives insight into a world that is very different from what my life looks like and opened my eyes further to what others have to suffer from for just being themselves.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
The debut novel of photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson was my favourite fiction book this month. It tells the story of two friends falling in love. Nothing special you might think. But it is – the book, only roughly 140 pages long, is so full of heartbreak and emotions. It tells the story of an unnamed person falling in love with a woman. And while love is central, the story is also about what it means to be a Black man living in London, experiencing racial profiling, losing friends, and finding his own way. The language of Nelson is almost poetic, raw, and just beautiful. I am sure this is a book I will read again and give as gifts to my friends.
Have you read any of the books? What have you read in the last weeks?
I do not often read books that make me feel slightly embarrassed about how little I know. But What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway) by Nimko Ali did exactly that – and I am grateful for it.
Nimko Ali is a Somali-British activist and one of the most prominent voices campaigning to end female genital mutilation (FGM). This book is part memoir, part manifesto, and entirely honest. She writes about her own experience of FGM as a child, about the silence and shame that surrounds it, and about what it has taken – personally and politically – to keep speaking about it anyway.
The title says it all, really. There are things we do not talk about – in families, in communities, in public life – because they are uncomfortable, because they challenge the way things are, because speaking up has a cost. Nimko Ali pays that cost again and again, and she does it with warmth, humour, and an absolute refusal to be quiet.
What struck me most was the tone. I expected something more clinical or angry – and while there is righteous anger here, there is also a lot of joy and personality. Ali is funny. She is self-aware. She writes about her community with both love and clear-eyed criticism. And she insists throughout that this is not a problem confined to one culture or one religion – the silencing of women’s bodies, women’s pain, women’s voices is everywhere.
This is not an easy read in the sense that it is comfortable – it is not meant to be. But it is readable, it is human, and it is important. I finished it in two days and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Who should read it: Everyone, honestly. But especially people who want to understand the intersection of culture, politics, and women’s rights through one woman’s deeply personal story.
In the last couple of months, I have been spending a lot of time online. Especially Instagram became my go-to app directly after waking up. I am a person who tends to compare herself to others and their lives and successes a lot. And this comparing often comes with questioning my own behaviour, values, dreams, and goals. In most of the cases, my life seemed less exciting, less successful, and less great overall. And I am kind of done with this constant feeling of not being/doing enough. To clarify this: this feeling comes from within me. At no moment did anyone ever, over the last year, tell me I was doing a bad job at my business or not succeeding. On the contrary, people keep telling me that I inspire them to pursue their own dreams and list all the things I have achieved. This feeling of never enough and constantly looking for happiness and the next best thing is taking the joy out of almost everything I am doing. And this is why it has to stop.
My starting point
Until last week, I was using Instagram for about 2+ hours per day. Mindlessly scrolling, chasing new likes, and hoping for new followers. I was constantly checking my shop to see if I had new orders or if someone liked my products. My inbox was refreshed every couple of minutes, in the worst moments, and WhatsApp was constantly on. Until one day about a week ago, I had enough. I finally bought the book “Digital Minimalism. On Living Better with Less Technology” by Cal Newport, deleted Instagram from my phone and started reading.
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
While reading the book, I soon realized that the apps itself were not the problem. Although they are designed to have users spend as much time as possible on them, they are not bad per se. It is how I used them that became the problem. I allowed an app to tell me how to feel: about my life, about my business, about the things I want to do, and about what success is. One of the first things to do to go through the digital declutter, as Newport calls it, is to identify the apps and technologies that are optional, and that cause the most distraction and reason to feel not good about me. For me, these are the following apps:
Instagram
Facebook
Gmail
Etsy
Youtube
WhatsApp and my laptop and smartphone in general.
The next step was to make rules for each of these apps/devices and to stick to them for 30 days. I am now on day 2 of these 30 days and I can already feel a difference.
My rules for each app/device are
Instagram: Delete theapp from my phone, use once per week (to stay in touch with people who ordered a custom made embroidery from me)
Facebook: Delete the app from my phone, do not use at all
Gmail: Deactivated app from my phone (deleting was not possible somehow), check and reply to emails from 11.00-12.00 every day (Monday to Friday)
Etsy: Delete the app from my phone, check traffic and likes during my Gmail time
Youtube: Either listen to music while working or watch inspirational videos while stitching. No mindless murder documentaries, no mindless videos in the evening.
WhatsApp: Mute notifications, check WhatsApp and reply to messages and stay in touch with friends only between 8.30-9.00 and 17.00 -17.30 each day
Laptop: 1h per day during my working time has to be screenless work. Today, for example, I spent an hour sitting on the guest bed brainstorming about my business and the direction I want it to take.
Phone: Turn sound on so people can reach me in case of an emergency, leave the phone in thekitchen after 20.00 o’clock
Screenless Saturdays: No screens at all until 15.oo o’clock on Saturdays
This might seem like a lot of rules, but I already feel the benefits. I have really realized that I was not in control of how I use the apps and technologies. And that I really want to have this control and power back.
Blocking the sites
My next step was to block the sites mentioned above on my laptop. I scheduled the times during which I can use the apps and it has helped me a lot already. I am using the Chrome Extension BlockSite for this and I had it set up in less than five minutes.
Newport points out that it is important to know how you can fill your new free time and to fill it with meaningful projects or activities. My third step was therefore to make a list of activities I knew from experience would make me feel good and I considered valuable.
Cal Newport: Digital Minimalism (2019)
Things to do in my new free time
Educational/Learning
Write my blog: Yes, you might think, really Anne? You did not post anything in months. True 🙂 And this will change again because I am shifting my focus away from fastpaced apps like Instagram and towards more in depth-writing which I find appealing and would like to do more of on a regular basis.
Follow online-courses: My boyfriend and I are doing the course Science of Happiness at edX by Berkley University and I enjoy it a lot. I have also signed up for the courses Gender and Sexuality: Applications in Society and European Paintings: From Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya.)
Read: I already read regularly, but reading is one of the first things I stop doing when I think I have to perform and produce. It is also something I easily stop when feeling stressed.
Try new recipes: Mostly, my boyfriend cooks but I enjoy it, too, and have the goal to try one new recipe per week for the next twelve weeks.
Outdoors
Cycle: My boyfriend and I cycle now almost every day. Some days just an hour, other days 100km. It is great to be outside and it helps me to find a bit of solitude.
Photography: I want to learn how to use my camera better and go for solitude walks (recommended by Newport and others). I want to discover the world around me a bit better and photography always helps me with that.
Home/Family/Friends
Declutter our home: We have just bought a house and are moving in November. So sorting through our stuff, selling what we don’t need anymore, or give it to others is a valuable and necessary project.
Meeting friends and family: Of course, this is not so easy and recommended to do during this pandemic, but I can also meet my friends in a video call and have a deep conversation with them instead of just connecting by liking their Instagram photos.
The schedule
Yesterday, I took 90 minutes to make a schedule that includes all the rules above but also gives a clear overview of my tasks for this week and the projects I want to work on.
My day tomorrow, for example, looks like this:
6.30-7.30: cycle
7.30-8.30: shower, breakfast, read
8.30-9.00: WhatsApp
9.00-11.00: Project/ Focus hours: Writing
11.00-12.00: E-Mails, orders
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-14.30: Designing new patterns for my shop
14.30-17.00: Stitching
17.00-17.30: WhatsApp
17.30-18.30: Dinner, Science of Happiness-Course
18.30-21.00: Reading, projectwork, Board Game
Some of you might find this too much planning, but for me, it helps me to know that everything will happen eventually and that I planned it. I will do the first recap of this experiment after week 2 and one final one after 30 days with a detailed plan on how to use social media and the apps mentioned above for my values and purpose. But I think my first conclusion so far is: Social Media will only play a part in my business life, not in my private life in the future and I feel great about it already.
In my first post Female initiation through reading, I gave a short introduction on what initiation is and how it can be found in literature. In this post, I will explain the concept of initiation a bit more in detail and also show how initiation plays an important part in some of our most beloved novels.
Initiation – The origins
The term initiation comes originally from religion and describes a religious change of status by means of a secret ceremony of admission and conversion, which usually unfolds as a tripartite process consisting of the novices ‘moving out’ of their previous existence, their ‘crossing over’ the decisive threshold after their proof of worth through appropriate tests, and their ‘going into’ a new, purified, and elevated existence and which is commonly acted out as a process of symbolic ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’.
Although the term has a rather long tradition, it is Jesuit Jospeh François Lafitau who gives a new dimension to it in 1724. He used the term to describe certain ceremonies of Canadian Indians. He is the first to divide initiation into three phases which he calls le principe, le commencement and l’entree de la vie. There are many anthropological definitions of the term initiation but in this blog series, I only want to use the definition by Arnold van Gennep. In his work Les rites de passage from 1909, he describes how every individual in society moves from one stage to the next with the help of rituals. He emphasises that the individual goes through changes while moving from stage to stage. He is the first to take Lafitau’s three phases and to adapt them to anthropology:
Van Gennep’s model of initiation
According to Van Gennep’s model, an individual follows three phases: An exit (rite de séperation, 1) takes place which separates the individual from society. This spatial as well as mental and emotional separation of the initiate from his family, especially from the mother, equates van Gennep with the death of the novice. The initiator must pass quests during this time to test and strengthen the initiate before he can rejoin society. The time ofseparation is called crossing (rite de marge, 2). Upon his return (rite d’agrégation, 3) into the “new” society, his life has to follow new rules and norms. His position in society has changed. The return can be seen as a rebirth.
Until Van Gennep, initiation as such was limited to the age of puberty. He is the first to broaden this view and to claim that initiation can take place at any age. He also is the first to include a psychological initiation in the definition which was before purely based on physical rites.
Initiation in literature – a fairly new concept
First of all, most definitions for initiation in literary texts focus on short stories. Furthermore, on American short stories. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Warren adapted the religious and anthropological term for literary texts in their work Understanding Fiction in 1943. The initiation is now more of a process which can contain many steps and the initiate can also only take one step and stay in this group without initiating further.
Mordecai Marcus versus Peter Freese
Mordecai Marcus’ essay What is an initiation story? defines in 1960 two different types of initiation stories:
Initiation is described as a passage of the young from ignorance about the external world to some vital knowledge
Initiation as an important self-discovery and a resulting adjustment to life or society
Marcus completely moves away from the three-phase definition of anthropology:
An initiation story may be said to show its young protagonist experiencing a significant change of knowledge about the world or himself, or a change of character, or of both, and this change must point or lead him towards an adult world. It may or may not contain some form of ritual, but it should give some evidence that the change is at least likely to have permanent effects.
In contrast, the three phases (exit, crossing, return) are vital for Peter Freese, who coined the term initiation journey. For both, initiation is not bound to rituals anymore.
A critical examination of society as initiation
Initiation can happen in various ways: Sexually, intellectually or via a critical examination of society. The ladder is one of the main characteristics of initiation in literary texts. When looking at the initiate, one must also always look at the society surrounding the person. And society is also the main factor that has an impact on female and male initiation. Above mentioned definitions are solely valid for male protagonists. Female protagonists undergoing initiation are barely visible in literary texts. While male initiation in literature is being studied since 1940, female initiation is only looked into since the 1970s.
In the next post, I will write about female initiation through literature in novels and show you how initiation can be found in works by Jane Austen,Marguerite Radclyff-Hall, Pearl Abrahams, Daj Sijies and Lloyd Jones.
Reading, meeting friends and talking about the book you’ve just read – it sounds amazing. The decision to start a book club is soon made and off you go. I am a member of two book clubs. It used to be three but one fell a little apart and I think I know why. It is funny that I had planned this post already some days ago and that the topic of the book club that just didn’t feel right anymore came up today while meeting a friend. Here is a list of 9 tips to have a successful and fulfilling book club.
9 tips for a successful book club
1. Be clear about your expectations
For one it might be to get together with friends, drink some wine and casually talk about a book. For another it might be the only book they read the month and they want to learn. Learn about the book, but also learn about you as a friend and fellow reader. Be clear on why you start (and/or join) the book club and what your expectations are.
2. Meet regularly, but not too often
You want to meet regularly, but everyone has a different reading tempo. Allow enough time for everyone to actually read the book, but don’t make the time between meetings too short so people might feel under pressure. You are doing this for fun after all!
3. Have a variety in the books you read
Unless you are a specific genre book-club, make sure to have a good variety. My one book club only reads fiction but we have a good selection of classics, contemporary novels and different genre. My other book club reads fiction and non-fiction and we try to switch between these two every other month.
4. Do something else than just talk about the book
Talking about a book is great, no doubt, but if you want to spend time with your friends, it might be nice to do something else as well. One of my book clubs started as a board game club and we now first discuss the book and then play games for hours. It is amazing. Even though we might spend time talking about a book I didn’t really like or have a lot to say about, I always know that there will be games. With my other book club, we always meet at a new restaurant and try new food.
5. Have some questions ready about the book
Many books have already questions for book clubs at the end of the book. They are usually very good and lead to great discussions. If you struggle to get the discussion going, I can only recommend having some open questions prepared to start the conversation. You could also pick out 5 questions everyone has to answer before the meeting. Anything that gets the talking going is wanted.
6. Have dedicated members
In the beginning, everyone will be excited. Then life gets in the way and members might start to drop out or not manage to read the book in time. If your expectations are clear, you can stir this. However, it is vital to be open and talk about the book club and what it does to the group when someone stops reading or showing up. A book club does not have to be huge. My one book club consists of three members and it is great. Two dedicated friends are better for this purpose than 10 who start slacking.
7. Stick to the book
Meeting friends is wonderful, especially if you haven’t seen each other for a month. However, you meet to talk about a book, so stick with it. Maybe have someone in charge who stirs the conversation in the right direction again.
8. Don’t just bring your own friends
We all live in a bubble and usually surround ourselves with people who share the same interests and opinions. Why else would you start a book club together? To broaden your horizon, maybe open the book club for people none of you knows. You will get to know other people, maybe make new friends and see the book in a different way.
9. Throw all rules overboard and have fun
You want to read only books that start with E? Only meet every 6 months? Go for it! Tips are nice, but they are no guarantee that your book club will be a success. Make it your own! I believe that it will be wonderful and last a long time as long as everyone is having a good time and leaves the meeting feeling ready to read the next book.
Are you part of a book club? Which books have you read already?
In his extensive work on the history of reading, Alberto Manguel makes a connection between the motif of reading and the relatively new literary model of initiation. In this blog series, I want to show how female protagonists go through a totally different type of initiation compared to their male counterparts – a journey through th the medium of books and through reading.
What is initiation?
Initiation is, according to the Cambridge dictionary, described as “special ceremony or responsibility that signals the acceptance of someone into a group”. The term originally comes from the anthropology. It was then adapted for literary texts after the Second World War. The literary concept of initiation describes the phased introduction of a young man into society. In literature, the young man goes on a life-changing journey and gains new experiences, knowledge and morals. They help him to either submerge into the society or to demarcate from it.
Male and female protagonists – a short comparison
Female protagonists, especially in older texts, are not allowed to travel. They have to stay at home and let the young men go out into the world and experience life out there. Of course, there are texts in which female protagonists are travelling. A few examples are Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest or Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out. There are also young male protagonists who read. Examples are Karl Philipp Moritz’ Anton Reiser, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Gottfried Keller’s Green Henry. These texts are defined as Bildungsroman and have not been researched in the light of initiation. It is interesting to point out that the male protagonists in the above-mentioned books are reading, however, it is travelling that has an impact on their lives and changes them. The male protagonists get encouraged to discover the world by books. The contrast between female limitation and male freedom can be illustrated clearly using these examples.
Female initiation – What does that even mean?
Initiation always also means a loss of innocence, so that female initiation is often only connected to a sexual introduction. The young girl gets a male mentor who introduces her to society, either through marriage or pure sexual seduction. Young girls are, due to a lack of female tutors, introduced to a clear heterosexual, male-dominated world and have to renounce their own desires and wishes. Why is it not possible for female protagonists to establish themselves in the society around them without having to give themselves up? There is no own, independent world in which the female protagonists can grow into. The society is always already male-dominated and occupied with male dogmas.
I wanted to find a female pendant to the male initiation journey and I believe that it can be found through reading. The male initiation journey finds its counterpart in the female reading.
Next week, I will discuss the concept of initiation a bit further and what this concept means in literature. I will also discuss which books I looked into to see how female initiation through reading is represented in classics and contemporary literature.
Do you believe that books and reading can change the world?
We want to do it all and we very often want or have to do it right away but we also want to make sure to get the right things done. Not only the things others want us to do. Since I work only three days a week, I feel myself get overwhelmed with tasks at work but also on my days off. I just plan too much for one day and get disappointed in myself when I haven’t managed to do all the 20 things on my to-do list instead of seeing the 10 things I did.
I am always looking for new ways to structure my work or projects in a better way and want to share the two things that have made a huge impact on my way of working.
The two things I now do to get the right things, or to be honest, to get anything done, can be found in the book Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.
1. Monthly, Weekly and Daily plans
I always have a yearly bucket list. Things I want to do in a specific time frame and sometimes I do not know how to make them all happen. A few weeks ago, I took 30 minutes, and I promise you that it won’t take longer than that, and I’ve done the following to make sure I am crushing my goals this year:
Finalised my master list of goals for 2019.
Created a monthly list for the remaining months of 2019. This means I have created a list for each month. I looked at my yearly bucket list and wrote down the projects/things I want to do/work on in each month. Some projects take several months and are never finished.
Create a weekly list. I then took the monthly, rather global items and divided them over the weeks of the respective months. I made sure that all items are scheduled at one point in the month.
Create a daily list. I took the weekly list and divided all the items there over the seven days of the first upcoming week.
Example of lists
You can find my master list of goals for 2019 here. This list is the basis for the monthly, weekly and daily list.
Monthly list August 2019
Stitch 5 portraits
Spend a weekend without my mobile phone
Found a magazine
Visit more provinces of the Netherlands
Start a power network
Be able to do a push-up
Host an art night for my friends
Try 5 new recipes
Create one new book lover city guide
Journal for a month straight
Try courses at the gym
Declutter our guest room
Create cross-stitch design and put it on Etsy
Start my happiness project
Work on my blog
Grow my Etsy shop
These are the goals I am focussing on in August. So, let’s see how I broke them down for the first week of August.
Weekly list
29.07-04.08.2019 – Stitch two portraits – Create to-do-list for my magazine – Work on push-ups – Host art night for my friends – Try one new recipe – Journal – Tidy up guest room – Happiness project – Blog – Instagram – Sport – Reading – Power network
In the first week of August, these were the things I wanted to focus on. I created such a very global list for every week of August making sure these lists cover the goals I wrote on the monthly list for August.
The weekly list then turned into a list for every day of the week, making sure I cover all the things from the weekly list over the course of the seven days of the week.
Daily list 30.07.19
Read the book on how to publish a magazine for 30 minutes in the morning
Instagram post and reply to comments
Write blogpost
Make a list of blog post ideas
Continue with to-do-list for my magazine
Send doodle for art night to my friends
Tidy up guestroom
Set date for power network
Ask favourite book shop if they want to sell my pin
Stitch one portrait
Journal before bed
Read before bed
Why the lists work well for me
I am less stressed because I have a clear overview and know that all my projects and things I want to do have their time now. I set priorities without leaving other things behind. At the end of each week, I look at the things I managed to do and also at the things I didn’t do. They are either moved to another upcoming week or I will make a recap/review at the end of the month and see how I can improve for the months to come.
I can only recommend to try it yourself and have created a printable you can use to structure your monthly, weekly and daily things you want to do.
Now, let’s talk about the second thing I am doing that helps me structure my work-load better.
2. Divide tasks into A/B/C-tasks
Brian Tracy suggests that we think about the tasks we have to do. And question ourself if it is a task we really must do (A-task) because it has consequences if we don’t or if it is a task that we should do (B-task). Undone B-tasks have only mild consequences. You can further divide your tasks into C-, D- and E-tasks. C-tasks are things that are “nice to have”. It doesn’t have any consequences if these tasks get done or not. D-tasks are things you can delegate to someone else, while E-tasks are tasks you can just ignore and not do at all.
How I use the ABCDE-method to get the right things done
At the beginning of the week, I take a notebook and write down the things I want or have to do this week. Then I decide if the tasks belong to category A, B or C. After writing the responding letter in front of the task, I start making a daily plan. I make sure to also plan in some buffer-time because at my work it often happens that spontaneous things are coming up.
Once I am done with planning out my week, I put the tasks with the A, B or C letter on my trello-board and map out the week there. This takes maybe 10 minutes at the beginning of the week but it really makes a difference in how I work and how much work I get done. I also make sure that I never start on a B or C task before my A-tasks of the day are done. Whenever I get a new task, I add a card on my trello-board and immediately put the right letter in front of the task so I know which tasks to focus on. Since I adapted this system, I get all my tasks for the week and even more done and that makes me just feel proud and organised.
How do you organise your projects and things you have and want to do?
Download the lists for your goals below and get the right things done.
