Start the New Year off right by reading something other than a textbook this semester! Checking out new novels usually stops when you have 50 pages of required academic articles to skim through every week.
However, reading for pleasure is also connected to numerous health benefits, like lower levels of stress and depression. Rather than checking your phone at night, try reading to get a goodnights sleep!
Here are five of my book recommendations to add to your bedside table:
1. Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir by Marina Nemat
I was gifted this book from my mom for Christmas this year and I haven’t been able to put it down! This book is narrative nonfiction from Marina herself, at sixteen years old she was arrested by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and tortured in the infamous Evin prison under false charges. This is the story of her survival in and out of prison.
2. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Big Magic is a manual for anyone who wants to live creatively and gives you a little insight on how Eat Pray Love’s author harnesses her mental stability.
Does wanting to live a creative life mean you need to actually be an artist? Absolutely not! This book inspires all kind of curiosity, questions how ideas are formed and teaches you to embrace challenges in your own work ethic. This book taught me to be more mindful in my own writing, and how to persevere through even the toughest writers blocks.
3. The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
When I first picked up this book at Indigo I realized Amy Poehler endorsed it and because I will do anything that woman tells me to I had to buy it. This book is a fictional story about the Plumb family, who are as dysfunctional and hilarious as they come. Brought together by their father’s inheritance the Plumb siblings have to help each other get back in shape and back in touch with what it really means to be a family.
4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
During World War II, a blind French girl and German boy’s life stories come together in occupied France. Jumping back and forth in time between two perspectives until the characters find each other, but not in the way you might think. Warning: Keep your tissues handy because this book will make you cry.
Happy reading!