Spring Reading List

Happy Taco Tuesday y’all! I hope everyone had a lovely Monday and that your week is off to a productive start. I tackled so much of my to-do list yesterday then watched it grow last night as I added more things going on for this week. #StoryOfOurLives Am I right?!

Anyway, today is such big day for me and so as I was thinking through some of my goals, I wanted to share what books I am currently reading. Something I have been wanting to work on over the past year or so was to read more for pure enjoyment. About three years ago, when I took a semester off working to focus more on school, I read atleast two books a month and was in a great routine of using 30 minutes before bed to do nothing but read. I’m slowly working to incorporate that pattern back into my routine because I realized that reading 1. helped me fall asleep much quicker and 2. 30 minutes of not being behind a screen before bed was taking stress off my eyes. Below, I’m sharing descriptions of each book, why I am reading them and where you can find them! Let me know in the comments what books you are reading 🙂

FAITH

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living
Why I am reading: To get over perfection
Buy: HERE

Written in Shauna’s warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more, all while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.

Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.

In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

Univited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
Why I am reading: To overcome false anxieties
Buy: HERE

The enemy wants us to feel rejected . . . left out, lonely, and less than.
In Uninvited, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences of rejection–from the perceived judgment of the perfectly toned woman one elliptical over to the incredibly painful childhood abandonment by her father. She leans in to honestly examine the roots of rejection, as well as rejection’s ability to poison relationships from the inside out, including our relationship with God.

With biblical depth, gut-honest vulnerability, and refreshing wit, Lysa will help you:

• Stop feeling left out by believing that even when you are overlooked by others you are handpicked by God.
• Change your tendency to either fall apart or control the actions of others by embracing God-honoring ways to process your hurt.
• Know exactly what to pray for the next ten days to steady your soul and restore your confidence in the midst of rejection.
• Overcome the two core fears that feed your insecurities by understanding the secret of belonging.

Wild and Free: A Hope-Filled Anthem for the Woman Who Feels She is Both Too Much and Never Enough
Why I am reading: To overcome insecurities
Buy: HERE

For all the fullness of God available to His daughters, we often feel limited by two defining insecurities: “I am too much,” and “I am not enough.”

Co-authors and best friends Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan have felt the same, until one essential question turned the tables on it all: If God is wild and free and he created women, what does this mean for us today?

Wild and Free is an anthem and an invitation in equal parts to find freedom from the cultural captivity that holds us back, and freedom to step into the wild and holy call of God in our lives. With fresh biblical insight tracing all the way back to Eve and a treasury of practical application, Jess and Hayley reveal how women today can walk in the true liberty we already have in Jesus.

Because you don’t have to be everything to everyone. You don’t have to try so hard to button it up and hold it together. And you certainly don’t have to quiet the voice that God gave you when he created you to sing. Wild and Free will help you shake off the lies of insecurity in your life, and step forward to maximize your God-given influence for his glory and the world’s good.

CAREER

Lean In for Graduates: With New Chapters by Experts, Including Find Your First Job, Negotiate Your Salary, and Own Who You Are
Why I am reading: To navigate through post-grad life
Buy: HERE

In 2013, Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In became a massive cultural phenomenon and its title became an instant catchphrase for empowering women. The book soared to the top of best-seller lists both nationally and internationally, igniting global conversations about women and ambition. This enhanced edition provides the entire text of the original book updated with more recent statistics and features a passionate letter from Sandberg encouraging graduates to find and commit to work they love. A combination of inspiration and practical advice, this new edition will speak directly to graduates and, like the original, change lives.

New Material for the Graduates Edition:
· A Letter to Graduates from Sheryl Sandberg
· Find Your First Job, by Mindy Levy (Levy has more than twenty years of experience in all phases of organizational management and holds degrees from Wharton and Penn)
· Negotiate Your Salary, by Kim Keating (Keating is the founder and managing director of Keating Advisors)
· Man Up: Millennial Men and Equality, by Kunal Modi (Modi is a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a recent graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School)
· Let’s Lean In Together, by Rachel Thomas (Thomas is the president of The Sheryl Sandberg & Dave Goldberg Family Foundation)· Own Who You Are, by Mellody Hobson (Hobson is the president of Ariel Investments)
· Listen to Your Inner Voice, by Rachel Simmons (Simmons is cofounder of the Girls Leadership Institute)
· 12 Lean In stories, short essays by readers around the world who have been inspired by Sandberg

REAL LIFE

Around the Way Girl: A Memoir
Why I am reading: I just deeply love Taraji, TBH
Buy: Here

From Taraji P. Henson, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe winner, and star of the award-winning film Hidden Figures, comes an inspiring and funny memoir—“a bona fide hit” (Essence)—about family, friends, the hustle required to make it in Hollywood, and the joy of living your own truth.

With a sensibility that recalls her beloved screen characters, including Katherine, the NASA mathematician, Yvette, Queenie, Shug, and the iconic Cookie from Empire, Taraji P. Henson writes of her family, the one she was born into and the one she created. She shares stories of her father, a Vietnam vet who was bowed but never broken by life’s challenges, and of her mother who survived violence both at home and on DC’s volatile streets. Here, too, she opens up about her experiences as a single mother, a journey some saw as a burden but which she saw as a gift.

Around the Way Girl is also a classic actor’s memoir in which Taraji reflects on the world-class instruction she received at Howard University and how she chipped away, with one small role after another, at Hollywood’s resistance to give women, particularly women of color, meaty significant roles. With laugh-out-loud humor and candor, she shares the challenges and disappointments of the actor’s journey and shows us that behind the red carpet moments, she is ever authentic. She is at heart just a girl in pursuit of her dreams in this “inspiring account of overcoming adversity and a quest for self-discovery, written with vitality and enthusiasm” (Shelf Awareness).

Suspense

Big Little Lies
Why I am reading: I love a good thriller!
Buy: HERE

A murder…A tragic accident…Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.

Well friends, that’s all that I have for y’all today! I am so excited to share these books because each of them are picks that I have had for forever + have started each in bits and pieces. Shop them all with the links about or in the below widget! So, what are y’all reading this season? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to check out your picks 🙂 Have a great day! -xo, Azanique <3

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