Five Books To Read In The New Year

Has it been a while since you picked up a book? Is reading on your list of new years' resolutions? If not,  it should be.

Reading is one of the most important things you can do. It works your brain, awakens your imagination and expands your vocabulary.

Sadly, with the internet, TV, and Twoonie Tuesdays at the cinema, most of us don’t do enough of it.

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about something or just learn something new, the easiest way to do that is to pick up a book! You can find it all – from defensive dating, to success in business, to getting more out of life, a book might help you to get started. So please, make some time this year and read. And for starters, put or select 5 on your list.

Women, Work & The Art Of Savoir Faire
By Mireille Guiliano
Mireille Guiliano, The New York Times Bestselling author for French Women Don’t Get Fat, is back to share some more French wisdom. Her latest book is a guide to navigating the work world, while living the good life, and savouring every minute of it. She tells the story of how she became a senior exec for champagne brand Veuve Clicquot. She took the brand to the top in the luxury market, using her tried and tested French philosophy on life. She wants you to “pop your own cork, and get the best out of life.”  Lesson one: make the most out of work without skimping on the good life. Mireille gives helpful hints on how women can identify hidden talents and passions, improve communication skills, balance work and life, cope with daily stress, and coming out on top. She hopes you’ll learn to never loose sight of the big picture, and of what’s most important: feeling good, facing challenges, getting ahead, and maximizing pleasure at every chance.

The Happiness Project
By Gretchen Rubin
This book caught our attention because of this question; What if you could change your life without really changing your life? Well, we figure that might be too good to be true. This is a story about a woman who seemingly had it all - on the outside, Gretchen Rubin had a good marriage, healthy children and a successful career – but still she felt something was amiss. Determined to end that nagging feeling, she set out on a year-long quest to learn how to better enjoy the life she already had.
If you can barely keep up with annual resolutions, try keeping a new one every month! That was part of Gretchen’s get happy plan. What were they? Simple ones, like go to sleep earlier, tackle a nagging projects, bring people together, be silly. She also took tips from age-old philosophies, to modern wise men and women, from Winston Churchill to Oprah.  She was developing her own definition of happiness and a plan for how to achieve it. Bit by bit, she began to appreciate and amplify the happiness in her life. Within a year, Gretchens ‘Happiness Project’ left her a happier person, not changing anything in her life, but rather her outlook. If you’ve felt like Gretchen in your own life, read this book and start your own Happiness Project.
 
How To Raise A Boyfriend
By Rebecca Eckler
If you feel like you’re offering not-so-casual advice and reprimanding your boyfriend, perhaps you should ask yourself: am I dating this guy or raising him?
Rebecca Eckler shows you in her new book, How To Raise A Boyfriend, how to do just that. And boy, does she have experience to back it up. She’s been left at the checkout with bags full of overflowing groceries, left her crossing a busy road on her own as he dashed for the other side, and forgot to pick her up at the airport.
So? Dump him! Right? Well, for Rebecca, perhaps her motherly instincts kicked in – she had a six year old daughter at the time of her misbehaving boyfriend. From making introductions, to offering compliments, to saying you''re sorry, boyfriends need to be raised,” says Rebecca “with the same lessons we use on our kids. As Rebecca writes, "If I can raise a child - a smart, kind and polite one - surely I can raise a boyfriend, too.”
So if he hasn’t got a clue, it’s not totally hopeless. Well, good for her. Maybe we can just read her story in good fun. Trying it out in real life? Well, only if you’re the patient type!
 
I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections
By Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron , screenwriter and director of You’ve Got Mail, pens her first book since her very successful, I Feel Bad About My Neck. In her new book, I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections, Nora takes a cool, hard, hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, bemoaning the changing conditions of modern life, and recalling with clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t forgotten. Yet. What does she remember? Falling hard for a way of life “Journalism: A Love Story”, hard break ups with the men in her life “The D Word.” She also lists twenty-five things people have a shocking capacity to be surprised about over and over again. She hopes to reveal the alarming evolution, a decade after she wrote and directed You've Got Mail, of her relationship with her in-box "The Six Stages of E-Mail"; and asks the age-old question, which came first: the chicken soup or the cold? All the while, she gives candid, edgy voice to everything women who have reached a certain age have been thinking . . . but rarely acknowledge.
 
Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man
By Steve Harvey
Steve Harvey knows men. Women too. His previous book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, was an instant number one on the New York Times bestseller list. He gave millions of women insight what men really think about love, intimacy, and commitment. In his new book he zeros in on what motivates men and provides tips on how women can use that knowledge to get more of what they need out of their relationships, whether it's more help around the house, more of the right kind of attention in the bedroom, more money in the joint bank account, or more truth when it comes to the hard questions: Are you committed to building a future together? Does my success intimidate you? Have you cheated on me? Get the answers to the questions you’ve been shy to ask from a man’s POV. With a comedic lightness, relationship except Steve Harvey dishes the goods.

Image from MorgueFile.

Hilary Lauren Fox
		About the author:
		Sometimes she's a redhead, sometimes she's a blonde. Some days it's H&M, and on other days, it's Chanel. What ever the mood, she is a woman who is passionate about the arts, fashion and social media. Born in Toronto, Hilary Lauren Fox is an only child to artist parents - mom was an illustrator and pattern maker, dad was a painter.  Rather then studying the arts as her parents hoped for, Hilary opted for a degree in psychology with dreams of working in a clinical setting. But after graduating she realized that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and that the arts was in her blood, applying her education within the art and fashion world.
	Read More >>