How to be Interesting in 10 Simple Steps by Jessica Hagy was on an end-cap at beloved Powell’s in Portland. It’s a great sketch noted thought starter for how one might want to approach things differently in the new year or anytime, whether you want to be interesting or not. For example, Step One: Go Exploring (practice noticing) and Step Two: Share What You Discover (not everyone got to go with you!). Both of these chapters are full of simple spacious sketch notes and the wisdom within is great for photographers or anyone wishing to live at the “intersection of wonder, awe and curiosity.”

I bought Small Victories, Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott at Lifeways, one of the few remaining Christian bookstores in the Bay Area 30 minutes away. The book is a compilation of musings on big questions and small and usually end in a very flesh and blood vignette. Many of these stories had me in a good cry at the end. Anne has such a nice was of tracing the path between abstract thinking and a real live human who likes the way an orange rind peels from the orange.

Though I have read Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies also by Lamott, I enjoyed Small Victories so much that I looked for more of her recent work also at Powell’s and selected Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair. Again, fantastic weaving together of abstract and the real like the steam rising from my morning coffee.  Enjoy!