Resolutions, Revisited

About this time last year, I blogged about some books that might help you with your New Year's resolutions. This year, how about something a little different: here are some books by authors and journalists who spent a year (or some other set amount of time) doing something different from their normal lives, with wildly varied results. Perhaps they will inspire you to try an experiment in your life, or maybe they'll just make you grateful to escape their lists of arduous, arbitrary restrictions in 2013.

Drop Dead Healthy : one man's humble quest for bodily perfection by A. J. Jacobs is this intrepid stunt journalist's attempt to be as healthy as possible, based on information from a number of more or less reputable sources. Its humor is balanced by a lot of thoughtful reflection on what health really is, and how to integrate health recommendations in a way that's actually helpful and realistic.

Read on for more stunts (or are they more than just stunts?):

Sorta Like a Rock Star

Give it up for the Princess of Hope, the last of the crazy optimists, Amber Appleton! From teaching English to Korean immigrants via R&B lyrics, to her weekly battle of words with a determined nihilist for the entertainment of lonely nursing-home residents, to her regular haiku exchanges with a Vietnam vet, this teenager does her best to shine a little joy into the lives of the people she encounters on a daily basis, in Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick.

Except that her own life isn't so miraculous. Unbeknownst to anyone, Amber, her mom, and her beloved dog, Bobby Big Boy, are living on a school bus in the middle of winter and scraping by on the wages of one part-time job.

Happy New You!

What are your New Year's resolutions? Learning a new skill, traveling the world, reinventing yourself, or getting around to something you've put off for a while? I just put up a display of books to help get you started. Here's the virtual version!

• Freerunning and parkour amp running and jogging up a notch, into an extreme sport. Do you dare try?
• Get crafty! Arizona's own Crafty Chica writes about sparkly, fun, Mexican-heritage-inspired crafts, not to mention fashion and style. She even penned a little crafty fiction! And you can save the planet by delighting your friends and family with recycled crafts from Recyclo-Gami, Craft Activism, Upcycling, or Steampunk Emporium.
• Take an offbeat vacation with The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel. Challenge your travel-mates to a game of "Trip Poker": winner picks a destination...and loser pays. Already have a destination in mind? We keep some always-available guidebooks in our ebook collection.Visit our digital downloads page and see if we have the right one for you! (P.S. If one of your resolutions involves reading classics, we have plenty of free public domain ebooks available that don't count against your checkout limit and never expire.)
• Create something really important, a lasting video record of a life-and death struggle where all of human existence hangs in the balance. That's right, I'm talking about making your own zombie movie with Filming the Undead!
• A lot of resolutions involve diet and exercise. Our collection includes books that run the gamut from vegan diets to pilates to fat acceptance; something for everyone!
• Maybe all this talk about diet got you thinking about growing your own food. We have a wide selection of gardening books, and we've got an awesome seed library to check out...literally!
• Finally, do you have trouble sticking to your resolutions, feeling like they're important, or even remembering them after a few months? (Me too!) This Year I Will offers tips on making lasting changes in your life. And although I have a pretty low tolerance for the self-help genre, Sark always makes me feel creative and inspired.

But library resources don't end with books! Visit our website to...

• Learn a language,
• Research your family's genealogy,
• Find articles, instruction videos, and more for all kinds of hobbies,
• Or start a business!

We also offer a wide variety of free classes in person at your local branch, where you can learn anything from computer basics to GED prep to languages to photo editing to Excel!

What are your resolutions? How do you use the library help you reach your goals?

Web + book = Double the fun

I don't have a computer at home, so anytime I want to search on the Internet I bike over to my closest public library. Some of my favorite quirky websites are publishing books, so those of us who can't keep up on the web can at least read about the fun world we live in. Here are three great books that will entertain for hours (and feel free to follow up on the web).
First we'll start with cakes, specifically Cake Wrecks. Now I've had my share of cake mishaps - the three-layered cake that leaned like the tower in Pisa, the checkerboard cake that was as dry as a checkerboard, etc. But the pictures in this book literally take the cake - and they are all professionally created in bakeries across the country!