End the Decade Appreciating Your Already Good Self

Perhaps it’s the never ending stream of end-of-decade, best-of and worst-of lists of TV shows, movies, plays, books, albums, memes, restaurants, etc.? Or, it could be the deluge of contantly streamable media is giving us all Lack-of-Season-al Affective Disorder (LSAD)? Or maybe it’s because we are entering an election year while still in the middle of year forever of a hostile and contentious political climate? Whatever the reason, who could blame you for feeling end-of-the-decade dread.

We at Off the Shelf would like to ease that dread by offering resources and materials for a more stress-free life. These resources focus on common New Year’s resolutions (health, finance, business, relationships) and promote new insights into your already-good self.

Mental Health

The Library offers activities for patrons of all ages, from chess to cooking, to writing, exercise classes and book discussions. These activities are not only fun, but they can also expose us to the unfamiliar while revealing new or re-found abilities. So visit our Events Calendar, or browse our Learning Resources to brush up on a language or research a topic you’ve always been curious about.  And, of course, browse our catalog for books like the ones below. We should never lose sight of the new year’s possibilities!

Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions by John C. Norcross

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

Digital Minimalism : Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (read the eBook, for maximum irony!)

If Our Bodies Could Talk: A Guide to Operating and Maintaining a Human Body by James Hamblin

 

Financial Health 

Did you know that BPL has a Business & Career Center where you can meet with librarians trained to help spice up your cover letters and resumes, research colleges and careers, tackle your own finances, learn how to get started in any business or take steps to start your own?  If you’re not sure, don’t worry: we’ve got the books to point you in the right direction.  Below are but a small sampling:

Broke Millennial : Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together by Erin Lowry

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam M. Grant

The Year I Put My Financial Life in Order by John Schwartz

Your money or your life : 9 steps to transforming your relationship with money and achieving financial independence by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

 

Mostly Random, yet the results might interest you?

Have you ever browsed the stacks at one of our branches? We do it daily and there are several thousand gems to be unearthed at any given moment.  We recommend doing it in person but if you can’t get to your local branch, hop onto our catalog, type in a random word (“mussel,” “cramp,” “thatch,” “bequest,” “ecumenical”) and see what our world has in store, such as:

The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History, and Its Role in the World Today, Together With a Collection of Recipes for Marmalades and Marmalade Cookery by C. Anne Wilson (eBook)

Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer.  (Parts 1 and 2 of the Obama Biden Mysteries.  Yes, that Obama, and that Biden.  Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Independent, these books are hilarious.)

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel

Wonderful Life with the Elements : The Periodic Table Personified by Bunpei Yorifuji

 

Political Health, but let’s stay positive people! 

Okay, fine: you are a responsible human being who can’t completely ignore politics in an election year. As constituents living in a civil society, keeping up is a reasonable response to unreasonable times. The library is full of materials and experiences that allow us to consider others’ points of view; the books below are but proverbial drops in the bucket. So read, listen and discuss with civil manners and in the immortal words of Sergeant Phil Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues, “hey, let’s be careful out there.”

Everything is F*cked : A Book About Hope by Mark Manson

Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness by Jennifer Hawes (Jennifer Berry)

Love Your Enemies : How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt by Arthur C. Brooks

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer

 

There’s a chance this year is going to be a long one, so let the library be a place where you can escape the seeming chaos or, maybe, and perhaps more importantly, make sense of it. We wish all of you a peaceful New Year!

Robert Weinstein is a librarian specializing in adult services since 2014.  He has worked on the BPL Literary Prize Committee for the past two years, never once saying “shh!” to a patron during that time.