books, lately.

JANUARY

Big Magic was the first book I read this year, and I'm so glad it was. I keep coming back to it when I hit a creativity rut. I have a hard time linking creativity to curiosity because my curiosity tends to be so academic and career-driven. Example: my current obsession is supply chain design & operations, and I'm pursuing a Supply Chain Credential from MIT on the side. I'm naturally disciplined when it comes to work, but not creativity, and I'm excited for my sister-in-law to move into town, so that we can be creative-work partners.

FEBRUARY

When Breath Becomes Air – I wrote about this book earlier this year, and I still think that it's one of my defining books for this year.

MARCH

The Expatriates. – I was immediately hooked on this book. The story follows the intersection of the lives of three women, with the underlying themes of motherhood and belonging. We spent about a year and a half living as expats in Shanghai, so the backdrop of expat life in Hong Kong resonated strongly.

APRIL

If I had a book club just focused on business,  Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World would be at the top of the list. So, so insightful. I would read passages out loud to Dave, s so we could discuss. I have a feeling this will be a book that I re-read every year.

MAY

All the Light We Cannot See is a book that I admit I still haven't finished reading. It's the perfect bedside book because the "chapters" are short, and the writing is stunning, so it's like a grown-up lullaby. I've stretched reading this book out over months, but I'm still hooked. It's a gem.

JUNE

Essentialism has been on my to-read list for a while, but I finally pulled the trigger after my friend Ashlee's recommendation (read her related post, here). I'm not quite finished, but I've already been talking about the books examples and principles with Dave and folks at work. The ideas overlap with some of other books I've been reading lately (see my book pairings below), but in a good, reinforcing way. It takes deliberate, sustained effort to do only the things that we alone are meant to do, and the pruning of the 90% of the non-essentials is my work in progress.

Book Pairings: Thrive and The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington; also: Shauna Niequist's essay "Things I Don't Do" in Bittersweet

SUMMER READING, SNEAK PEAK.

This season's releases are so good. Liane Moriarty's newest book – Truly, Madly, Guilty – comes out this month, and I can't wait to read it. I devoured her other books. There's always a twist, and they are always funny. I'm also a huge Shauna Niequist fan – I preordered Present Over Perfect months ago, even though it doesn't come out until August 9. Visit her website, and you can get a sample chapter delivered to your inbox. More of my summer reading list, coming soon.

When breath becomes air.

It feels both heavy and appropriate to start the year off reading one of the most existential books I've ever read: When Breath Becomes Air. 

This book was all of it: beautiful, brilliant, simultaneously esoteric and grounding – about calling and purpose and the work that only he could do. The last few pages of my copy are wrinkled in spots where tears fell. Watch the Katie Couric interview with Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, here - I tear up without fail.

Book pairings: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

January Book Club: Date Night In

The day that David proposed, he assembled a picnic of food from our favorite places. He picked up roast beef sandwiches from Clementine’s, mint lemonade from Literati, strawberry steak salad from Damon & Pythias, cupcake babies from Vanilla Bake Shop. I had an early class, and all I wanted was to go back to my room and take a nap. But the food convinced me. He was speaking my language, a language that I had discovered sometime in college, somewhere along our string of dates.

Seven years since then, some of my favorite memories involve food, with him.

There was Athens on our honeymoon. We took naps in the afternoon, sunburned and tired form the heat of the day. By the time we woke up, the subway was closed, so we would take a taxi to the plaka. One night, we had street gyros after seeing Public Enemies on a building rooftop. Another night, we ate dinner by moonlight, al fresco at a restaurant that served us watermelon after our meal. It was the best watermelon I’ve ever tasted.

Then, on our first anniversary, there were strawberries in wine at a little restaurant on a corner in Santa Barbara, one of my favorite places in the world. On vacation in Palawan, on our island-hopping tours, we ate fish, bought fresh at that morning’s market, grilled over a fire, small enough that we could each have our own. And afterwards, in town, halo-halo that we ate out of pastel-colored plastic ice cream sundae glasses.

In Shanghai, our home for over a year, we lunched at Mr. and Mrs. Bund for David’s birthday, one of about five days in the city where the sky was actually blue. The sauce served with the steak was foamed, and the fruit with lime and pop rocks will always be a favorite. The first time we went to Da Dong in Beijing, we walked for miles in the freezing cold, not realizing that there was a location down the street from our hotel. The Peking Duck is the best there – the skin so crispy that it melts in your mouth and the sauce almost a molasses, rich and dark. They have complimentary drinks in the waiting area, because there is always a wait at Da Dong, and the last time we went, they had pitchers of a strawberry whisky cocktail.

We celebrated our 4-year anniversary in Paris and the wedding of one of my college roommates. The only time we’ve ever ordered a full bottle of wine for ourselves was in Paris, at Le Bistrot Paul Bert, where Dave picked out the best Pinot Noir i’ve ever had and where the raspberry macaron we had for dessert was the size of my head.

Fancy dinners out aren’t at the top of our list now, with a baby and my strong affinity for sweat pants. But date nights are more important than ever, when we take time to connect not about work or bills, but about our hopes and fears and the work that God is doing in our hearts these days.

This month, I’m reading

Date Night In: More than 120 Recipes to Nourish Your Relationship

 not only in the kitchen, but on the couch. It’s already found a place on my coffee table, along with

Our Q&A a Day: 3-Year Journal for 2 People

that I get so excited to fill in every day (that would make a great gift for Valentine’s Day, if you’re looking ahead).

One of the big themes in my life seems to be 

waiting

. And the other big theme, it seems, is 

creating space

. I want to do more of it in 2015, starting with date nights in, starting with cooking through this book, creating space to connect month by month.

homesick.

In preparing us for leaving for China, we were told in our program that we would go through stages of cultural shock/emotional change: fascination, irritation, accommodation, depression, and adaptation. I think I'm actually in between the depression and adaptation stages.

not quite depressed, not completely adapted.

mostly homesick and missing California.

the sun doesn't really shine out here in Shanghai,

and I sure do miss that sunrise glow.

p.s. i went to starbucks in search of a pumpkin spice latte...

and no luck.

missing those pumpkin bagels & schmear from Einstein's, too.

so if you're reading this, please have latte & bagel for me.

i'll be reading

this book

and thinking about home.