Facebook Reading Challenge – October choice

Hey, get me! Two posts in one week – can’t remember the last time I managed that! Perhaps I am emerging from the Covid doldrums and rediscovering my motivation again. I like to dip into so-called ‘self-help’ or motivational books from time to time. It can give you a bit of a refresh, an opportunity to reflect on the way you do or approach things, and there is never any harm in that. Earlier this year (yes, during THAT period when time lost all meaning) I read Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and it has had the most profound effect on me. I dip into it every now and then (I have marked and highlighted so many pages that inspired me) and it continues to provide a unique kind of nourishment.

Recently I discovered on one of our less visited bookshelves at home, a copy of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s not the kind of book I would usually go for (though at one time when I was all about my career I definitely would have done) and neither my husband or I have any idea where it came from. I expected to read a chapter or two and then toss it aside, assuming it would be all business-y and ’80s, but I’m actually really enjoying it and getting some useful ideas from it. Yes, there is a lot about management in it, but primarily it’s about personal mastery, and who couldn’t use a bit of that from time to time.

I digress, since this post is meant to be about October’s choice for my Facebook Reading Challenge. I have posted my less than enthusiastic review of last month’s choice (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and after struggling with the rather heavy philosophical content, I am delighted that this month’s theme is classic children’s fiction! Yay! I love children’s books and try to read at least one every month or two. I haven’t read one for a while – perhaps that is another reason I’ve been feeling under par – so I am very much looking forward to this one.

The book I have chosen is Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. Published in 1981, it is set during the Second World War and concerns the relationship between William, a young boy from London, evacuated from his home, where he has been ill-treated by his mother, and Tom, a widower in his sixties, in whose care William is placed. It was made into a film in 1998, starring John Thaw as Mister Tom, which has been recommended to me too.

So, that is definitely going to be a treat during what is, in my view, the most beautiful time of the year.