Meditation for fidgety skeptics

Meditation for fidgety skeptics a 10% happier how-to book / Dan Harris and Jeff Warren with Carlye Adler, 287 pgs.

A follow up to Harris' book "10% Happier" that recounted his adoption of a meditation practice after he had an on-air panic attack.  This book answers a lot more questions about how to go about making meditation a "thing" in your own life.  Jeff Warren is the master meditation teacher and Dan is still a hard charging news anchor who doesn't want stuff to get too treacly.  Put them together with a team on a rock and roll rental bus and see what happens!  They travel across the country trying to introduce meditation to the masses.  Part bromance, part science project, part travel memoir, this book will really make you feel like you should give meditation a chance.  I enjoyed listening to the audio book that is read by Dan and Jeff.

The 6:41 to Paris

The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Phillippe Blondel, translated by Alison Anderson, 146 pages


On a packed commuter train to Paris, Cecile is sitting by the sole open seat when a man sits down next to her. As fate would have it, the man is Phillippe, a man she dated briefly 27 years earlier. But this is no sunny trip down memory lane: their short affair ended in brutal humiliation for Cecile, and impacted both of their lives in ways they would never have imagined. Taking place entirely on the 90-minute train ride, The 6:41 to Paris jumps between the thoughts of Cecile and Phillippe, who are unsure of how to interact (or even if they should) given their painful history. For a short book set almost entirely in the minds of the two main characters, this is a surprisingly suspenseful tale, as Blondel masterfully uses their emotions to drop hints about their past before revealing it in the final pages of the book. This is an excellent short read. I highly recommend it.