A few weeks ago, Manfriend and I swapped workspaces in our apartment so that he had a bit more space to work on a project of his own that he’s been tinkering with. So I’m coming to you this morning from my new nook – a little recess off our dining area. Except because neither of us eat at the dinner table, it’s kind of a second sitting area and washing-drying zone.

I’m not settled into the nook yet – there’s piles of junk everywhere and the space is very blank. I miss my window terribly and I’m already thinking of ways to decorate my new space. Once that’s done, I think I’ll be very content in my little nook.

Now, onto books! As predicted, this will be much shorter than last month’s booky post. No fiction for April, although I’m racing through a fantastic read that I look forward to sharing with you in next month’s round up. Note that clicking on the book covers uses affiliate links.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson

I have mixed feelings about this one. Declared a ‘mostly-true memoir,’ it details the life of blogger Jenny Lawson from her upbringing in a small Texas town, through her teen years, marriage and the birth of her daughter.

There are some excellent passages in this book. I particularly like Lawson’s discussion of making friends with other women and how unexpectedly fulfilling she finds these friendships.

Through her life Lawson has been plagued by anxiety, about which she is very frank. At times though, along with her sometimes excessively self-deprecating manner, I found this book quite uncomfortable to read. Importantly, Lawson’s frank discussion of the hard bits is to be commended, because we need more openness around anxiety and other similar afflictions. But when she pushes too far and lands the reader in discomfort, Lawson undoes the achievement: it becomes weird and taboo and uncomfortable again, and as a reader I no longer want to deal with it.

Too-uncomfortable content aside, I did in the main enjoy this read. Lawson’s style is open, sometimes in-your-face, and very funny. She is frank and fearless, giving the reader a total stream-of-consciousness insight into her life.

The Renaissance Soul, Margaret Lobenstine

I came across this book via Michelle Ward, the When I Grow Up Coach. It’s aimed at those of us that are multi-passionate and perhaps can’t decide which interest to pursue or how to make our many interests work together.

The Renaissance Soul seeks to address the misconception that people who have many or changing interests might be flaky and unreliable, although to be honest the first few chapters on this didn’t really hit the mark. Instead, they did tend towards the message, hey, you have career ADD and that’s ok!

Once the book got going, though, there were a number of useful exercises to help the reader narrow down her priorities and build a lifestyle accordingly. Lobenstine also deals with managing the perceptions and objections of friends and family who might continue to see a multi-passionate person as indecisive or unreliable. Importantly, Lobenstine recognises that a lot of multi-passionate people need to maintain a day job that might not line up with their passions, and explores how to manage time, priorities and other commitments to find a good balance.

This book overdid the anecdotes for me – it felt like just about every other paragraph was a real-life example of how someone successfully implemented the writer’s advice. That aside, there is a great deal of useful information and some practical exercises in this book that will be useful to anyone who has trouble managing their many and varied interests (like me!)

Everything I Know, Paul Jarvis

I read this book in one sitting, and found myself (internally, I was on the train) nodding along, thinking yesssssss and Right?!

Fantastic. The end.

But if you want more – this book is what it says: everything Jarvis knows (but probably not really) about his career in freelancing.

What I particularly enjoyed about this book is it isn’t about setting up a business, or finding clients, or how to generate content. Rather Jarvis speaks of identifying what you deeply value and working to that instead; stay strong to your core beliefs and your work will be endlessly satisfying.

This book is cover-to-cover pearls of wisdom and will continue to bring value over multiple re-readings. Jarvis very open that this isn’t a how-to, and things that work for him might not work for others. But by exploring his attitude beneath his business this book acts as a very valuable guide that anybody could apply not only to a business but also their outlook on life.

What are you currently reading? Let me know in the comments!