Tuesday 18 October 2016

Live This Book! by Tom Chatfield


Live This Book! by Tom Chatfield
Published in the UK by Penguin Random House in August 2015.

How I got this book:
Received a copy in a Penguin ThinkSmarter giveaway

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



'Do you want to spend more quality time with the people, ideas and passions that matter most in your life? In an age of weightless, disposable digital products, here's a book to help you live more fully: that invites you to explore your beliefs, ambitions, friendships, memories and flights of imagination. A mixture of inspiration and reflection, it's unlike anything else you've seen before: a beautifully crafted object blending text and design into something for you to make truly your own. Downloading a million digital books won't make you happy - but carrying this one with you might.'

I'm not generally a reader of self help books, but I was surprisingly impressed with Live This Book! It doesn't lecture or offer up solutions, instead its pages are filled with thoughtful questions and ample space to fill in answers. The idea is that by getting to know ourselves better, we can determine exactly what will bring us individual happiness. Chatfield doesn't tell readers what to do in order to be content, he asks what five objects we might put in a time capsule, what sensations we experience while going for a walk, what the last live performance we really enjoyed was. Exercises include Sherlockian (is that a word yet?) Mind Palace imagining, controlled breathing, dinner table conversation starter questions, and asking both friends and acquaintances about ourselves then comparing the answers.

As well being well-considered and insightful, Live This Book! is also a great piece of design and I can imagine it gracing many desks purely as an object to flick through for visual stimulation. I would highly recommend it for anyone wanting to get to know themselves better, but also as a gift suggestion for bloggers and writers as I think it would be a very useful idea generator for when the creative well runs dry!


Search Literary Flits for more:
Books by Tom Chatfield / Self help books / Books from England

1 comment:

  1. My copy of Live This Book! for sale on eBay
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/132161334940

    ReplyDelete