Indistractable (& More October Reads)

October was a banner month for me as far as books go. I finished reading eleven of them, including Nir Eyal’s best-seller, Indistractable. Read on for my impression of each work:

11 Books I Read in October

War Stories by Gordon Korman

I finished reading Gordon Korman’s War Stories aloud to the three kids/grandkids I’m still homeschooling right before we left for a week-long camping trip last month. Korman is an excellent storyteller, and this book is no exception.

Young Trevor Firestone has always idolized his great-grandfather, GG, a WWII vet who landed in Normandy, fought his way across enemy lines, and helped liberate a small French village.

So when GG is invited back by the town to be honored during an anniversary celebration, Trevor jumps at the chance to accompany him. As they retrace GG’s steps across Europe, Trevor begins to understand that war is not the glamorous adventure he always envisioned.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman contains a good reminder of the importance of investing in your marriage and nurturing a close relationship with your spouse, along with a few helpful tools for navigating difficulties and having hard conversations.

However, the book is not written from a Christian perspective and therefore lacks any depth of understanding of all God’s divine plan for the covenantal union between a husband and wife entails.

For instance, the author cited several several purposes physical intimacy serves in marriage–including fun and closeness–but procreation didn’t even make the list.

Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Anne Frank had a gift and a flair for writing, which is showcased beautifully in Diary of a Young Girl. This narrative account is filled it with great vocabulary, strong analogies, and excellent descriptions of day-to-day life in the secret annex that not only her own family but several others called home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. It also provides insight into what was going on in the world at large during the time they were in hiding.

My daughter and I read the version of Anne’s diary as it was originally edited by her father. There is an expanded, “definitive” version of the diary available now, augmented with passages her father removed, but as many of those excerpts were sexual in nature or contained unflattering accounts of the strained relationship Anne had with her mother, we decided to stick with the older, cleaned up version.

How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom by Esther Engelsma

My daughter-in-law recently read Esther Engelsma’s How Can I Feel Productive as a Mom and enjoyed it so much, she bought several more copies to share with family and friends.

She gave one to me while I was in San Antonio last month, calling it “the best kept secret” of parenting books. It’s only 35 pages long, so I finished reading the entire thing aloud to my husband on our trip back home (and we felt very productive doing so 😉).

The author calls for a shift in mindset: Instead of using how much we accomplish as a measure of productivity, she suggests we consider how well we use our time. More Mary, less Martha. She articulates this premise so beautifully, I’ve already ordered my own stack of gift copies.

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

My daughter and I read The Hiding Place for school. It had been years since I last read this book, so I’d forgotten what rich examples of God’s faithful presence and sustaining grace she packed into her Holocaust account.

Oh, for the ability to view others — friend and foe alike — from an eternal perspective, just as Corrie’s sister Betsy was so wont to do! She pitied and prayed for her tormenters, because she rightly understood they were in far graver danger than herself.

Indistractable by Nir Eyal

Nir Eyal’s Indistractable offers helpful tips and tricks for directing your attention to the things in life that matter most.

We live in a word that is riddled with shining objects screaming day and night for our attention, and many have found their focus so hopelessly fragmented that it becomes virtually impossible to concentrate on the less flashy tasks that deserve our best effort.

Eyal accurately identifies the problem and deftly outlines a way out of the conundrum. I’ve found his suggestions both effective and easily implemented.

30 Ways a Wife Can Bless Her Husband by John Trent

I read John Trent’s book The Blessing when I first got married. It had a huge impact on how I’ve related to both my husband and my children. So when I spotted 30 Ways a Wife Can Bless Her Husband on the list books I could get for free with My Reader Rewards a few months back, I jumped on it.

The book’s introduction references many of the same principles laid out in his earlier book, but then he follows it up with a variety of suggestions for putting those ideas into practice.

It was a quick and enjoyable read and a good reminder to be intentional in the way I bless and encourage and build up my husband.

Amazing Love by Corrie ten Boom

In her book Amazing Love, Corrie ten Boom shares many inspiring, powerful, and ofttimes miraculous tales from her own life, both as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps and as a Bible teacher and evangelist in the years following WWII.

The chapters are short and read almost like a devotional, with lots of Bible passages referenced throughout. One verse Corrie seemed particularly fond of quoting was 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” That’s a promise worth clinging to, isn’t it?

Sudoku Variations Volume 3 by Djape

Djape’s Sudoku Variations are my favorite kind of Sudoku puzzles. Every page presents a new twist on the same familiar challenge.

You must still fill each row, square, and (sometimes) diagonal with numbers 1-9 (or sometimes 0-8, 1-6, or 1-12), but you must also abide by other rules unique to that particular puzzle: odds in gray squares and evens in white, or no two consecutive numbers side by side, or the full complement of numbers in each jigsaw puzzle piece, etc. Most puzzles combine multiple 9-squares into one larger puzzle. They keep me continually challenged. Rarely am I able to complete an entire puzzle in a single sitting. It took me seven full months to complete all 152 puzzles included in Volume 3.

Hooked by Nir Eyal

I enjoyed reading Nir Eyal’s Indistractable so much, I decided to go back and read his earlier bestseller, Hooked. You might say that if companies were not so proficient at putting into practice the concepts in this book, a book on remaining focused rather than perpetually struggling against distractability would never have been necessary in the first place.

The titles are opposite sides of the same coin.

In Hooked, Eyal explores what characteristics make a product habit-forming, and how the knowledge and ability used to create such products can be harnessed and used for good. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of the morality of manipulation and the matrix he gave for determining where creators fall ethically and what drives them.

Count Your Blessings by Jennifer Flanders

As has become an annual tradition, I read through my own Count Your Blessings, last month and completed several additional pages every year in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving: doing word studies, reading and memorizing the included scriptures, responding to the writing prompts, and coloring in the beautiful vintage artwork and illumined Bible verses.

If you’d like to kindle more gratitude and appreciation for the blessings in your own life (and celebrate Thanksgiving all season long), my Count Your Blessings devotional journal is a thoughtful and effective method for doing so. I’d urge you to grab a copy of my journal and try it out for yourself!

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