Most of last week was spent preparing for our camping trip to the Great Sand Dunes. However, I did manage to read a couple of books over the weekend.

Books I’ve finished recently:

• Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton – This was a pretty interesting book. Most of it I’d already heard in pieces but I thought it did a nice summary. Their basic premise is the way to maximize happiness, after necessities, is to
  1. Buy Experiences
  2. Making indulgences a treat, not an everyday affair
  3. Buying time -things like robotic vacuum cleaners, moving closer to your job so you don’t commute, etc
  4. Pay Now, Consume Later – People feel emotional pain paying for items and their enjoyment of an event is decreased if they have to pay for something right before getting/doing something
  5. Invest in others – donate to charity, etc
• Juvenile Fiction: Crispin: the Cross of Lead, by Avi – This book won the Newbery Medal in 2003. It’s set right after the Black Plague in England. It’s the story of a boy who has to flee his home due to a falsified crime. He meets up with a man who teaches him to be more than a serf. Good story with an ending I found a little unexpected.
• Juvenile Fiction: The Vengekeep Prophecies, by Brian Farrey – This fantasy centers around a family of professional thieves and con artists. Unfortunately, Jaxter, the protagonist, is no good at it. It’s a coming-of-age story about how Jaxter saves his family even though he isn’t a good thief.

Currently Reading:

• Bestseller: Inferno, by Dan Brown – I’m still working on listening to this one. I got tired of Robert Langdon, the protagonist, talking and had to take a break. I might have better luck if I try to read it because then I could get through it faster and each monologue doesn’t sound so long.
• Poetry: Love Poems, by Nikki Giovanni – Still planning to finish reading this one also. Just haven’t picked it up recently.

Current Goal Counts: