Tag: Joy

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee

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I am so grateful to My Mentor Book Club, a sponsor of The Stacks for sending me Joyful. MMBC is a monthly book subscription, where you get two newly released nonfiction books sent to your door. I am always really excited when the books show up, and sometimes they send me things that I’ve never heard of that are totally in my wheel house. That was the case with Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee.

Here is more about Joyful

Have you ever wondered why we stop to watch the orange glow that arrives before sunset, or why we flock to see cherry blossoms bloom in spring? Is there a reason that people — regardless of gender, age, culture, or ethnicity — are mesmerized by baby animals, and can’t help but smile when they see a burst of confetti or a cluster of colorful balloons.

In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive, while another fosters acceptance and delight — and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives. 

Lee does a fantastic job of breaking down the ten different elements that provoke joy, she calls them “The Aesthetics of Joy” and they range from energy to magic, from abundance to celebration. This isn’t simply a design book, Joyful does a fantastic job of including the psychology of joy and experts in a range of fields that engage with each aesthetic. I particularly loved hearing about color (in the energy aesthetic) from Ellen Bennet of Hedley & Bennett Aprons. These moments through out the book provide context for Lee’s points and give depth to seemingly basic concepts.

This book allowed me to think of the different aesthetics that spoke to me, and the places in my life I could add joy. Its a totally practical guide complete with worksheets that help you figure out where you could add joy to your life, and which kinds of things spark that joy in your own environment. For me, I love sparkle, and travel, and hosting dinners, which all fit into different categories, and could work on adding color and magic into my world.

I think overall the book could’ve been a little shorter. Some of the later sections got repetitive and didn’t require as much explanation, but were still long. While the writing is solid, the content is where this book really shines. Lee traveled the world to meet with so many kinds of people and experience unique places and gardens and homes and artwork. It is almost a kind of culture study in addition to being a guide for joy.

In 2019, I’m looking forward to (or dreading) a renovation in my own home, and found this book to be helpful and inspiring for that process. It also will serve me as a guide for how I want my whole life to feel, especially with a new year on the horizon. If you like a pop-psychology book, want to live a more joyful life, or are thinking about transforming any spaces in your life (including launching a new project, or hosting a major event) I would suggest you check out Joyful and Lee’s website, The Aesthetics of Joy for guidance and inspiration.

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Spark (September 4, 2018)
  • 3/5 stars
  • Buy on Joyful Amazon

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The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson

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The Stacks received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. For more information click here.

After reading Lacy M. Johnson’s memoir, The Other Side I couldn’t wait to dive into this essay collection, that was positioned as a sort of response to her kidnapping and rape that was documented in her memoir. The Reckonings is that response, and it is much more than that as well.

More on The Reckonings

In 2014, Lacy Johnson was giving a reading from The Other Side, her memoir of kidnapping and rape, when a woman asked her what she would like to happen to her rapist. This collection, a meditative extension of that answer, draws from philosophy, art, literature, mythology, anthropology, film, and other fields, as well as Johnson’s personal experience, to consider how our ideas about justice might be expanded beyond vengeance and retribution to include acts of compassion, patience, mercy, and grace.

She grapples with justice and retribution, truth and fairness, and sexual assault and workplace harassment, as well as the broadest societal wrongs: the BP Oil Spill, government malfeasance, police killings. The Reckonings is a powerful and necessary work, ambitious in its scope, which strikes at the heart of our national conversation about the justness of society.

The Reckonings is one of the most powerful books I’ve read. A well crafted meditation on justice and the roles that each of us, as humans and citizens, has in the greater picture and good of society. Johnson is a great thinker, who is subtle with her own intellect. She is wise. She is thoughtful. She is accessible. She sees the world in a more compassionate and realistic way than many. However she never forces her depth on her reader, instead she allows to understand her own processing, peppering her discoveries with “I think”. This isn’t done out of self doubt, but as a way to remember Johnson is trying to figure it all out, and figure out her role in it all.

This book is profound. It has something to say, about joy and health, and access, and vindication, and mercy, and grace, and privilege, and art, and the most base human desires. Johnson leans into the complex nature of sacrifice and healing. Honest and vulnerable each essay is willing to engage with the complexities of society, and in doing so, Johnson has to confront herself. Her biases and what they say about her ability to be compassionate or an ally, or whatever it is that comes up. The Reckonings has so much to say, that when I got to the end of the book, I went ahead and read all of the notes, in full, and then went back and re-read the first two essays. I couldn’t get enough of the words and what they had to say.

There are essays in The Reckonings that range from the Nigerian Girls captured by Boko Haram to Hurricane Harvey, from the justness of the death penalty to the cost of the BP oil spill. The essays seem like they wouldn’t belong in a book together, but somehow as you’re reading them, each one feels like it is in its perfect place. They all build on one another until we come to some resolution. I won’t tell you where that is, but know that it was fulfilling and bleak. The only way this book could have ended.

I think there is something to learn from this book for just about everyone. The writing is beautiful and the content matches. Johnson is a professional writer, something that we often times over look, but The Reckonings reminded me why people dedicate their life to the arts, so that they can create artwork that reminds the rest of us what it means to be alive.

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Scribner (October 9, 2018)
  • 5/5 stars
  • Buy onThe Reckonings Amazon

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of this show. If you prefer to do a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. Shopping through these links helps support the show, but does not effect my opinions on books and products. For more information click here.