Reading Rainbow

I have always been an avid reader since I was a little girl, but once I became pregnant I stopped reading for entertainment and instead focused on every book on pregnancy I could get my hands on. I must have read my copy of  What to Expect When You are Expecting from cover to cover a thousand times, and then I delved deeper into even more pregnancy related reads: breastfeeding guides, nursery decor books and parenting advice guides. I was basically a walking encyclopedia of all things pregnancy related. Not to mention some of those books I read scared the "maternity pants off me" with all their information on diseases, warnings, and conditions. My Ob-Gyn begged me to put down the pregnancy books and stop searching the internet because I was driving myself nuts with the oveload of information and was self-diagnosing a new "phantom" condition every week. Luckily, I was very close to my doctor or she would have surely deemed me too difficult a patient and sent me on my merry " high anxiety" (I'm using her words here) way. Thankfully, my pregnancy was complication free, and my child was completely healthy at birth regardless of all the nights I had stayed up worrying myself to death. So of course, I could now get back to reading all those best sellers I had missed out on during those 9 months of pregnancy....WRONG!!! I had a newborn baby, and reading was the last thing on my mind after 3 hour feedings and endless nights with little to no sleep. It has only been in the last couple of months that I have fallen back in love with reading. My new best friend, Mr. Nook Color, really helped encourage this renewed passion. I can now easily finish 3 books a week (plus my weekly subscriptions to People, US Weekly, and OK...I obviously love me some celebrity gossip).
Here is what I've been reading on my Nook in the past week:

2.) The Happiness Project  by Gretchen Rubin

"Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.
Rubin didn't have the option to uproot herself, nor did she really want to; instead she focused on improving her life as it was. Each month she tackled a new set of resolutions: give proofs of love, ask for help, find more fun, keep a gratitude notebook, forget about results. She immersed herself in principles set forth by all manner of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see what worked for her—and what didn't."

2.) Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom

"What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together? In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere. Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy. Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof..."

3.) The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

"In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?"