Well, if Oprah has a book club, so have we! I got in the book mode after the last post and decided to recommend the good books that I’ve read this year.
Here it goes:
THE HELP
By Kathryn Stockett
The Help is an uplifting read about friendship, overcoming prejudice and loving oneself. I couldn’t put the book down and night after night I found my self traveling back to the 60s trying to understand the prejudice that happened back them and how it still exist in different forms nowadays.
It’s about the struggles of African-American maids in the 1960s and the white women they worked for. Set in the segregated and volatile town of Jackson, Mississippi, The Help focuses on three women. The first is Aibileen, an African-American woman who has worked for white families for more than 20 years with a special love of raising children. The second is Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a white woman recently graduated from college who wants to be a writer. Third is Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, who has a reputation for back-talking to her employers and for being the best cook in town, especially for her pies.
In addition to racism, the book also touches on sexism and classism as the main characters and the women around them deal with being “the weaker sex” and the struggles that come from being considered “white trash” or a “society lady.”
The story is coming up to the big screens soon. I wouldn’t miss it for anything in this world!
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG
By Muriel Barbery
When I first started this book I had a hard time with some of the words and with understanding the main character, Renné. But as I moved forward a new world opened up to me, with many emotional revelations about human relationships.
It’s about life, art, literature, philosophy, culture, class, privilege, and power, seen through the eyes of a 54-year old French concierge and a precocious but troubled 12-year-old girl.
Renée Michel is the 54-year-old concierge of a luxury Paris apartment building. Her exterior (“short, ugly, and plump”) and demeanor (“poor, discreet, and insignificant”) belie her keen, questing mind and profound erudition. Paloma Josse is a 12-year-old genius who behaves as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. She plans to kill herself on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday.
Both Renée and Paloma hide their true talents and finest qualities from the bourgeois families around them, until a wealthy Japanese gentleman named Ozu moves into building. Only he sees through them, perceiving the secret that haunts Renée, winning Paloma’s trust, and helping the two discover their kindred souls. Moving, funny, tender, and triumphant, Barbery’s novel exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.
CRAFT.INC
By Meg Mateo Ilasco
The perfect book to start your own creative business.
This is a fantastic book if you are inspired to start a new creative business! It helped me a lot when setting up my Mis Colores Shop on Etsy. It makes you ask the hard questions while encouraging you to push ahead and find the confidence it takes to put your product into the marketplace.
Craft, Inc. is the hipster business primer for entrepreneurial crafters to turn what they do for fun into what they do for money. Pro crafter Meg Mateo Ilasco offers a step-by-step guide to everything from developing products and naming the company to writing a business plan, applying for licenses, and paying taxes. Chapters on sales, marketing, trade shows, and publicity round out the mix.
Buy the books here:
<a href="“>CRAFT.INC
<a href="“>THE HELP
<a href="“>THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG
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