Books, words and a wee gift.

The power of words and language in perspective-making. Plus some gifts!

It actually means:

I love language. Reading. Books.

Books have been my guardians. My playmates. My teachers. I love books all my heart.

I recently read the extraordinary Braiding Sweetgrass, which explores the benefits of living a reciprocal life with our world. Written by Professor Robin Wall Kimmerer - a botanist and Citizen of the Potawatomi Nation - this book expanded my perspective in so many ways. But there’s a particular section that blew me away.

When Robin began learning the language of the Potawatomi Nation, she discovered the language is founded on a vital - and unusual - distinction. Grammatically, everything is classified as either alive or not-alive.

‘Not alive’ doesn’t mean inanimate. It refers to things that are significantly removed from their natural state. Things made by people: concrete; a road; a desk.

‘Alive’, on the other hand, refers to everything in nature, including bodies of water, trees, plants. And - wait for it - rocks.

If you read my last 2 posts, you’ll know that my doctor recently suspected I had a fatal illness. (You can catch up on the first of those posts here and the second here.) And although thank fuck he was wrong, that experience made me want to live in a way that not only sees, but actively honours the sacredness of life and our world.

Imagine if every word and every thought gently encouraged us to acknowledge the aliveness and the innate sanctity of everything around us.

When my health problems began 3 years ago, my eye issues were one of the hardest things to handle. As a passionate bookworm, no longer being able to curl up with a good book sucked.

Before my eye problems, I’d avoided audiobooks. I didn’t think listening to a book would feel the same. I didn’t think it counted as real reading.

Sometimes (in fact, more and more often) I enjoy being wrong (is there a better way to expand our perspective than realising our previous perspective was too limited?!)

It turns out I adore being read to! I love the different voices, the intonations, the audio world-building. I love hearing the person who wrote the book read it to me.

As someone who now does the bulk of their ‘reading’ with their ears, I’m reading so much more now!

I get super into books. As in ‘oops, this book is too good and now I need to cancel my plans for the day’. I clearly remember making myself late to work once because I was finishing the last Harry Potter book. I rushed myself into the car and finished the book while waiting at a red light.

Audiobooks allow me to listen while I drive, or rest or draw.

While talking to

Jillian Hess

in the comments section of her fabulously creative Substack (

Noted

) last week, I shared how much fun I'm having doing something I never imagined I'd do: tracking my reading.

Tracking has helped me realise when I might wanna switch from fiction to non-fiction. It’s also a way to notice my various interests and values in a given time period. Like a journal, but for my reading. Plus did I mention it’s super fun?!

I often feel like the content of a book falls out of my head the day after I finish reading it. So, in my Book Tracking Fun sheet, I now write little notes to help me remember my reading experience. While chatting with Jillian, I realised that these little notes can function as mini book reviews!!

I’m sharing my Book Tracking Fun spreadsheet with you for 2 reasons:

1. If you wanna start tracking your own reading, you can make a copy, personalise it and get started! (You’ll find instructions on how to do that at the start of the doc)

2. You get access to my mini-book reviews! There’s 29 of them so far 📚. (If you just want to see the mini reviews, open the doc, ignore the first page and click the tab for 2023).

To see and/or get your own copy of the Book Tracking Fun doc, just click this magical button:

I have a little something else for you too. If you look closely at Book Tracking Fun, you’ll notice a column where I track the source of the audiobook. 10 of the 29 books were accessed on Scribd.

Lots of people don’t know about Scribd and if that’s you, then you’re welcome in advance! 😁

Scribd is like a Netflix version of Audible, but better (imo) for 2 reasons:

1. You pay one monthly subscription fee to access everything on the catalogue (rather than having to pay for each individual book as per Audible)

2. They have audiobooks, but also ebooks, magazines etc.

Scribd has a 30 day free trial period, but if you use this link, you and I both get a free month! Which means you get a total of 60 days of access to everything on the platform for free (with zero obligation to continue or ever pay anything)!

(FYI, Braiding Sweetgrass is one of the books I accessed on Scribd)

Thanks for being here! If you already have something to say about any of this, then here is our friend, the comment button:

If you prefer to respond to questions, then never fear - coz I have some!

1. What is your favourite drawing this week?

2. If you looked at the Book Tracking Fun sheet, are there any books there that you’ve read? Did our experiences match or were we fascinatingly different?

3. Have you ever tracked your reading? If you have, what was your experience?

4. Were you ever as resistant to audiobooks as I was? Have your thoughts on audiobooks ever changed?

5. Did you already know about Scribd? Anything on there you think I should check out?

6. What was the best thing that happened to you this week?

Thanks again for being here. You rock.