By Jordan Stacy

This summer, dive into A Book That Takes Its Time, written by Irene Smit and Astrid van der Hulst. It is produced by a company in the UK and is not your-average-joe book recommendation. The book is centered around the idea of living mindfully and what exactly that means. It contains stories from people living in the UK and their experiences with mindfulness. The book is divided into four sub categories including time to breath, time to learn, time to create, time to reflect, time to let go, and time to be kind. Each chapter is filled with ideas of how to live in the moment and follow out those actions. It’s not gushy or lame, or unrealistic. The book doesn’t say that in order to be mindful, you need to sit on the ground for an hour, in a candle lit circle. (On that note, if candle-lit meditative circles are your thing, keep doing you!) In fact, it suggests activities like cooking and smiling more often. It will make any reader see what mindfulness truly is without feeling intimidated about such an in depth idea.  What makes this book so special is that throughout the entire book are pages and pages of postcards, journals, DIYs, decorative collage paper, surprise messages, and more. This is one of the few books that has caught my attention and kept it for longer than thirty minutes. Read it!