I love learning new words, especially when those words are fun to say. Words like hullabaloo, whippersnapper and chimichanga just make me smile.
They make me smile so much, I have a page in my notebook where I collect them so I can return to them again and again.
There’s one word I added recently that I’m particularly obsessed with: flaneuring.
Flaneuring means wandering with intention for a better life. Slowing down, being present, soaking everything in. We could always use a little more of that, right?!
Right.
That’s why I’m sharing a list of books that embrace the idea of flaneuring so you can, too.
You’ll find links to my Amazon and Bookshop affiliate stores below. Thanks for your bookish support!
The Art of Flaneuring by Erika Owen
This book is a handbook of sorts…a handbook for wandering through life with intention, starting with a simple walk. Owen is a travel writer who brings her spirit and her incredibly relatable (and funny!) voice to each page. You’ll learn how to slow down, look around and pay attention to what’s around you. It’s small, has lots of white space and a blue font, something I paid attention to immediately. Want to add more presence to your life? Start here.
Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn
I devoured this book and loved every minute of it. It not only brought my new passion project to life, it prompted me to stop and REALLY think about how I bring that passion into my daily life and work. Meg and Reid were some of the most enjoyable and relatable characters that I have ‘met’, each incredibly different but connected together through the signs that are literally changing the course of their lives. I had to sit for a moment once I closed the final page to just be still. Their lessons on honesty, on STAYING and becoming more than your circumstances will certainly stay with me for a long time.
Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson
In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. “Written” by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people, and small gestures.
Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist
I read this book with a sense of disbelief. How was it that Shauna pegged my current way of living so perfectly? It’s like she saw right through the pages and into my mind and heart, inviting me to truly live her words into being and choose present over perfect. I’ve never read ANYTHING that so perfectly captured my day to day struggles with busyness, perfectionism and yes, anxiety. And because I felt seen and understood, I devoured the book in a way that I couldn’t otherwise. I explored many hard lessons that I’m still grappling with today and gained many incredible insights that instantly changed how I think about my purpose. Filled with my sticky notes, this is a book that will sit front and center in my office so I am reminded of the magic within it.
The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday by Rob Walker
Welcome to the era of white noise. Our lives are in constant tether to phones, to email, and to social media. In this age of distraction, the ability to experience and be present is often to think and to see and to listen.
Enter Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing —an inspiring volume that will help you see the world anew. Through a series of simple and playful exercises—131 of them—Walker maps ways for you to become a clearer thinker, a better listener, a more creative workplace colleague, and finally, to rediscover what really matters to you.
Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude by Stephanie Rosenbloom
In our increasingly frantic daily lives, many people are genuinely fearful of the prospect of solitude, but time alone can be both rich and restorative, especially when travelling. Through on-the-ground reporting and recounting the experiences of artists, writers, and innovators who cherished solitude, Stephanie Rosenbloom considers how being alone as a traveller–and even in one’s own city–is conducive to becoming acutely aware of the sensual details of the world–patterns, textures, colors, tastes, sounds–in ways that are difficult to do in the company of others. Rosenbloom’s engaging and elegant prose makes Alone Time as warmly intimate an account as the details of a trip shared by a beloved friend–and will have its many readers eager to set off on their own solo adventures.
