Non-Fiction pt. 2 – Books about people

A little later than I had originally planned, but here is the second part of my favorite non-fiction books I read in 2016! You can find the first part here, it is about self-help books. This post will be about my faves in the category ‘books about people’ which are usually written by the author about their own life. What I like about the books I’ve picked is the humor with which they have been written. Life is not always easy, but like Hannah Hart says you have to ‘practice reckless optimism’ and I find these people inspiring and maybe you will too.

‘Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things’ by Jenny Lawson

I listened to the audiobook of this, read by Jenny Lawson herself and I laughed out loud numerous times. There is something special about listening to an author read their own work and I would highly recommend listening to this book (or others) besides reading them in print. In ‘Furiously Happy’ Jenny Lawson talks about her struggles with mental illness, but in the most hilarious way possible. Dealing with mental health problems will never be easy, but instead of dwelling on how hard it is, she talks about how she tries to bring happiness and joy in her life, often in the most outrageous and fantastic ways. For example by strapping her stuffed raccoon onto her cat and trying to take a video of it in the middle of the night, because she couldn’t sleep, because of insomnia.

‘Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded’ by Hannah Hart

Another book about someone dealing with mental health issues, yay! Buffering is Hannah Hart’s life story so far and deals with growing up with a father who is a Jehova’s witness and a mother who has undiagnosed schizophrenia. It is also about her coming to term with her sexuality, especially with regards to her (fathers) faith and a little bit about her career on youtube. I follow Hannah Hart on youtube for a few years now and am a huge fan of her ‘My Drunk Kitchen’ show and her other videos. I think she is a great personality with a lot of profound thoughts and reading them in her book was amazing and wonderful. The book’s material sounds very down and depressing, but the way she writes takes it to another level. A level in which she recognizes she did not have it easy, but she wants to stress that she was at times also very happy and things are never black and white.

These books helped me to understand that sometimes you don’t have a choice in feeling how you feel, but other times you can choose to be furiously happy or practice reckless optimism and sometimes that is all you need to lift you out of a ‘low’. And recognizing both those things (being allowed to feel low and choosing to let go of that feeling) are allowed and neither will always be the right thing to do. Do you have any non-fiction you think I should read? Let me know in the comments below!