A Purple Life

This was a wonderful book. It goes into the history of what they call the Laziness Lie, this American belief that your worth it tied to your output as a worker and that ever not giving 110% (even when your body is screaming for you to do so) is lazy and a sin.

In addition to taking us down memory lane to discover where this stupid lie came from (cough puritan religious beliefs and the need to convince slaves to work when they are not paid to do so cough), but it also provides some great examples of people who bought into this lie and what happened to them, their health and their relationships (Spoiler: It's not good).

The book also provide steps you can take to combat this lie and examples of how you can care for yourself and others to avoid the inevitable burnout that this kind of thinking leads to eventually. Overall an absolutely fabulous book!

I don't have the words to properly describe how absolutely fucking fantastic this book is. It's perfect.

I started reading it at 8pm last night and stayed up until I finished it at 5am...and I'm re-reading it now. I came for the romance and stayed for the hilarity, amazing characters and shocking revelations about what it means to be an American, part of a legacy and different from the ‘traditional' idea of who you should be.

I don't think a book that's technically in the romance genre has ever had such a profound impact on me or helped me to see myself more clearly. It's absolute perfection.

WARNING: Do not start this book unless you have enough hours left in the day to finish it. It's that good.

I made the mistake of starting it before bed, went to sleep, awakened, immediately continued reading it and finished it in one sitting.

Axiom's End is a fascinating mix of genres, one of them being sci-fi, which is a genre I love. And this is the best sci-fi book I've read in a long time.

It has sensationally deep characters and a well thought out plot paired with unique ideas that made me question my own assumptions. And that's something I'm always excited to see in fiction.

Most books on writing I've read either lean too heavily into dry academic text or into dramatic life story. This does neither and instead is written based on the tools it describes and most importantly, provides constant examples from other writers showing how these tools work. ⠀
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I've never been hooked on a non-fiction skills-based book like this one. This book singlehandedly ended my lifelong hatred of commas and got me on board with subheads (which I often leave out). It also provides easy and fun activities at the end of each chapter to help you better understand the material. This book is superb and I'm both excited and scared to apply its teachings to my own writing