Finally: A supernatural book with a sense of humor

By Tiffany Young

"Hounded" by Kevin Hearne begins with a very old druid in the body of a 21-year-old shopkeeper, Atticus O'Sullivan. Hoping to keep his home secret, he changes his Irish name, opens an occult bookshop and minds his own business.

Fate has other plans, however, as supernatural body after supernatural body hunts him down to tell him about others coming after him and giving him advice. While he knows he can trust his vampire and werewolf attorneys, can he trust the goddesses and witches who say they want to help him against his rival?

The story line is pretty amusing with him communicating silently with his dog, who makes jokes even as he is at battle with his arch rival, asking for steak and French poodles when everything is over.

The magic and different beings are also described thoroughly enough for an outsider like me to understand what their particular gifts are, which makes the fact that there are multiple beings tolerable.

This is the first of three books, and I think I am up for a trilogy if the rest of the Supernatural Book Club is.

Enter your shorts

If you love to read, you may dream of being a writer. Why not try your hand at a short story competition? It's quicker than writing a novel and will get your creative juices going. The Writer's Digest has a competition going on over here.

The deadline is Nov. 15, 2011. Good luck!

Making a list and checking it twice

Not sure what to read next? Don't have a list of books to read or a stack piling up next your bed?

Well, I can't relate to that, but if this is you, Lifehacker has a nice post on how to make a summer reading list.

Goodreads.com is especially good, and if you join, make sure to add me as a friend.

A quick, uplifting read

Got a few minutes? Download this book, "The Wisdom of Serenity" to enjoy during moments of downtime.

The author, Christopher Foster, writes The Happy Seeker, a blog about spirituality and its effect on the soul.

The book is just 35 pages including the cover and bio, but offers short little truths about life, such as "Your body has limitations" but "there is another part of you that is forever free."

It's a free, downloadable book, so the only cost is time.

The Little Prince: A trip to childhood

By Tiffany Young
Do you ever feel like you've lost something from your childhood? Perhaps it was innocence or great ideas or your creativity, but there's something that was there now just beyond your grasp in adulthood.

Enter "The Little Prince" by Antione de Saint-Exupéry. This book, presumably for youth, speaks it's greatest truths toward adults.

The story begins by telling how a man who is trapped in the dessert with his wrecked airplane had enjoyed drawing as a child, but was told by adults to stick with something that would make him money. Decades later he is trying to fix his plane when he gets a visitor—a prince—who has been traveling from his own small planet to other planets, finally landing on earth.

Each planet describes a different sort of adult.

The first is the king, who represents those who want to rule over people.

The second man is a conceited man, who represents those who need continuous praise and validation.

The third is a drunk, representing those who have bad habits and wallow in them.

The fourth counted the stars and represents those who do nothing of consequence and thinks it's very important.

The fifth stands for rule-followers who can't think for themselves, but do the same thing every day because that is what they are supposed to do.

The sixth is a geographer, who represents those who want to live an adventurous life, but live vicariously through others.

And the seventh is Earth, where the pilot is so busy trying to survive, he almost misses the relationship with the prince.

While I'm not sure if the author is religious at all, there's a lot of symbolism that makes me think he at least has a knowledge of religion.

It's interesting there are seven different men represented, just as there are seven deadly sins.

There are good seeds and bad seeds and the bad seeds must be destroyed early on so the planet is not overtaken, which correlates with the idea of cultivating good seeds in Jesus' parables.

At the end, the prince dies, so he can go back to his rose, whom he is in charge of. It seems that his death could symbolize the death and resurrection of Christ and his returning to God. His death is by a snake, which makes me think of the Garden of Eden.

And these are just a few of the religious symbols I noticed while I was reading.

Whether you're religious or not, there is plenty to learn in this whimsical and heartfelt book about relationships, cultivating creativity and remembering life from a child's perspective.

The drawings by the author illustrate the story nicely and made me think the story paralleled the author's, who was in fact, a pilot.

No excuses—it’s time to create!

By Tiffany Young

For anyone looking for a swift kick in the butt to get started on their novel, painting or any other endeavor, “The War of Art—Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” by Steven Pressfield delivers.

The book is broken into three books, with the first focusing on resistance. Resistance, Pressfield says, comes down to anything—good or bad—keeping you from your opus (More on finding your opus when I write my review of Thomas Moore’s “A Life at Work”—excellent!).

Many forms of resistance have appeared throughout my life: procrastination, rationalization, fear—Check!
Book two focuses on the professional aspect of creating. The number one rule, it seems, is showing up. You’ve probably heard it before, but that’s what separates the writers from non-writers—writing! Imagine that. Ever met someone that says they’re a writer, but when asked what they’ve written, they haven’t actually started?

Book three is where the book moves from reasons why you may not create and setting yourself up for creative success to persuading the reader that they were made to create and that artworks are from another realm.

This both takes some pressure off the artist, while adding to it at the same time. Relief comes when the realization hits that it’s not even our piece of art being rendered—there are muses or angels or whatever you’d like to call them whispering what to do next—hence screenwriters who say they don’t develop their plots, they just appear as scenes flashing in their mind.

The scary part, however, is in Pressfield’s final pages, “You shame the angels who watch over you and the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along on its path back to God.”

Pressfield essentially tells us we are robbing humanity of something great if we are not contributing to society with our God-given gifts—Wow! I take it back … a kick in the butt would feel better.

Though this book leans toward the spiritually driven, I’d suggest it to anyone struggling with productivity in their unique talents.

Don’t worry about some long, boring book; Pressfield keeps it to 163 pages—most of them incomplete. When he’s finished with one point, he moves on to a new page and a new point with quick and poignant stories to motivate.

One thing at a time

If you're anything like me, you spend the day tweeting, facebooking, checking e-mail, playing Words With Friends and mostly just being distracted. If you feel like it's keeping you from doing the things you need and want to get done, perhaps reading Leo Babauta's "Focus."

You can download the free book and read it in .pdf format on your computer or print it out.

If Leo Babauta sounds familiar, it may be because his blog Zen Habits has long been successful among GTDers and minimalists.

Babauta came on the blogging scene originally giving GTDers advice on productivity and slowly moved into a more minimalist view, in which he focuses less on goals and more on living a more aware life. His book "Focus" shows others how they can eliminate distractions and focus on the things they love—be that creating, spending time with loved ones or just relaxing.

Some of the things he hit on that I know I need to work on is eliminating phone/online distractions hen I sit down to work on something.

As you can imagine, working in news, I'm expected to have my eye on the pulse at all times, but staring at Twitter and news feeds all day does not help me write articles. Finding a balance is sometimes difficult and I believe he is right in that most of us can eliminate these things, if not entirely, to a certain degree. Could I check e-mails just 4 times a day? Probably so and be more efficient to boot.

Other things he suggests are simplifying your workspace—having just 5 items on your desk available instead of it being cluttered with things you may only need once a day, such as staplers or tape.

I'm a long way from developing most of these useful suggestions in everyday life, but I've pared down my distractions before, and I'm hoping, with the suggestions from this book, I can find balance again.