We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype system serving all types of libraries. We are here to help you find new books, for yourself or for your library.

This season we are moving through the state of Minnesota, looking at an interesting fact about each county and giving you a book prompt from that fact. We will share six book suggestions to meet that prompt, to get you started on reading new books. You can also take that prompt and find any other book to meet the challenge!

Today our prompt is inspired by Le Sueur County! Le sueur means “sweat” so we want you to read a book about exercise or good health.

We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!

The Blue Zones, Second Edition: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, by Dan Buettner

Dan Buettner reports on health, fitness, diet, and aging, drawing on his research from extraordinarily long-lived communities–Blue Zones–around the globe. Buettner has launched a major public health initiative to transform cities based on principles from this book, an updated and expanded edition of his bestselling classic on longevity. His prescriptions for lifestyle, nutrition, outlook, and stress-coping practices will add years to your life and life to your years. 

A long, healthy life is no accident. It begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits. If you adopt the right lifestyle, experts say, chances are you may live up to a decade longer. Buettner has led teams of researchers across the globe–from Costa Rica to Sardinia, Italy, to Okinawa, Japan and beyond–to uncover the secrets of Blue Zones. He found that the recipe for longevity is deeply intertwined with community, lifestyle, and spirituality. People live longer and healthier by embracing a few simple but powerful habits, and by creating the right community around themselves. In The Blue Zones, Second Edition, Buettner has blended his lifestyle formula with the latest longevity research to inspire lasting, behavioral change and add years to your life.

Region by region, Buettner reveals the “secrets” of longevity through stories of his travels and interviews with some of the most remarkable–and happily long-living people on the planet. It’s not coincidence that the way they eat, interact with each other, shed stress, heal themselves, avoid disease, and view their world yield them more good years of life. Buettner’s easy to follow “best practices” and list of healthy lifestyle choices from the Blue Zones will empower readers to live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives.

Kintsugi Wellness: The Japanese Art of Nourishing Mind, Body, and Spirit

Kintsugi is an art form that reconstructs broken pottery, sealing the pieces together with gold to create something that is even more beautiful for all of its cracks and flaws. In Kintsugi Wellness, Candice shows us how this ancient Japanese practice can be applied to our lives to achieve radiant health.

Part 1: Lifestyle introduces the Japanese art of living and aging well, from spending more time with family + nature and honoring the seasons (and the impact of the seasons your body) to reconnecting with ancestors + learning of adaptation, discipline, humility and kaizen (continuous improvement).

Part 2: Mind explores the ways in which the mind and body are inextricably linked in Japanese wellness philosophies, showing readers how the philosophy of golden repair can be applied in cleansing rituals, meditation, and soothing traditions.

Part 3: Heart shows us how to incorporate a greater sense of connection and gratitude into our lives through community, spirituality, personal relationships, nature, respect and family – the cornerstones of Japanese culture.

Part 4: Nutrition offers detailed information on essential Japanese ingredients (including superfoods like green tea/matcha, miso, and fermented foods) as well as traditional cooking traditions and methods, with forty whole-food recipes including California style bowls, miso, soba, temaki (hand-roll) sushi, bento boxes and more.

The philosophy of kintsugi is not about perfection – it is about healing, becoming whole, and finding the beauty in our imperfections. Written in Candice’s warm, conversational style, Kintsugi Wellness offers readers the tools to mend what ails them and to embrace and celebrate what makes them unique.

Hygge: Unlock the Danish Art of Coziness and Happiness, by Barbara Hayden 

Cravings for comfort, for coziness, for contentment: everyone experiences the desire for a happier, less stressful, and more serene life.

Hygge, the Danish-born philosophy, is one proven way to achieve such a life. From the Old Norse for “well-being,” hygge embodies a philosophy that is as much a mindset as it is a way of life.

Specific activities are designed to encourage you to cultivate togetherness and joy at the smallest and simplest things in everyday life.

This book provides an in-depth explanation of the hygge lifestyle, as well as numerous bits of practical advice on how to practice hygge every day.

Take a second to imagine how you’ll feel once you start practicing hygge, and how your family and friends will react when they start to experience the joys of a peaceful, cozy, happy life. Even if you feel that your life is too busy to slow down and enjoy all the benefits of hygge, you can certainly achieve a state of hyggelige with a little assistance from the tips and techniques offered throughout this book.

Beginning to practice hygge in your life simply requires a desire to create an atmosphere conducive to comfort and calm, a focus on togetherness and family rather than work and status, and a belief that material wealth and consumer products do not equal happiness. Rather, it is an intrinsic feeling that comes from leading a comforting life of self-care and well-being. Success, following hygge, is not defined via one material thing. Rather, success is about work-life balance, creativity, and productivity in your life, comfort, and happiness in your home. 

The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, by Jonathan Rauch

 Why does happiness get harder in your 40s? Why do you feel in a slump when you’re successful? Where does this malaise come from? And, most importantly, will it ever end?

Drawing on cutting-edge research, award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch answers all these questions. He shows that from our 20s into our 40s, happiness follows a U-shaped trajectory, a “happiness curve,” declining from the optimism of youth into what’s often a long, low slump in middle age, before starting to rise again in our 50s.

This isn’t a midlife crisis, though. Rauch reveals that this slump is instead a natural stage of life―and an essential one. By shifting priorities away from competition and toward compassion, it equips you with new tools for wisdom and gratitude to win the third period of life.

And Rauch can testify to this personally because it was his own slump, despite acclaim as a journalist and commentator that compelled him to investigate the happiness curve. His own story and the stories of many others from all walks of life―from a steelworker and a limo driver to a telecoms executive and a philanthropist―show how the ordeal of midlife malaise reboots our values and even our brains for a rebirth of gratitude.

Full of insights and data and featuring many ways to endure the slump and avoid its perils and traps, The Happiness Curve doesn’t just show you the dark forest of midlife, it helps you find a path through the trees. It also demonstrates how we can―and why we must―do more to help each other through the woods. Midlife is a journey we mustn’t walk alone.

The Adventurous Eaters Club: Mastering the Art of Family Mealtime, by Misha and Vicki Collins

TV star Misha Collins and his wife, journalist and historian Vicki Collins, show families how to be mealtime adventurers so that kids might have a lifelong relationship with real food

Chicken nuggets. Hot dogs. Macaroni and cheese. These are just some of the greatest hits we offer kids at mealtime.

Misha and Vicki Collins totally get it. When their son West was a toddler, he began refusing anything that wasn’t bland and beige. At first, they succumbed, anything to end the mealtime battles. But with sinking hearts they realized fruit snacks and buttered noodles weren’t just void of nutrition, they were setting him up for a lifetime with a limited palate and a reliance on convenience foods.

So, as a family, they decided to lean into what they love best—adventure—and invited their kids to be playful and exploratory in the kitchen. Now, in The Adventurous Eaters Club, Misha and Vicki share how they created a home where mealtime doesn’t involve coercion or trickery, and where salad, veggies, fresh soups, and fruit are the main course. Combining personal anecdotes and practical tips with over 100 creative, delicious, whimsical recipes little hands can help prepare The Adventurous Eaters Club offers readers all the support, encouragement, and practical advice they need to make lifelong adventurous eaters out of their kids.

The Joy of Movement: How exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connection, and courage, by Kelly McGonigal

Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it’s a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn’t have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy.

Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery–and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe, from Tanzania, where one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet live, to a dance class at Juilliard for people with Parkinson’s disease, to the streets of London, where volunteers combine fitness and community service, to races in the remote wilderness, where athletes push the limits of what a human can endure. Along the way, McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.

The result is a revolutionary narrative that goes beyond familiar arguments in favor of exercise, to illustrate why movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. Readers will learn what they can do in their own lives and communities to harness the power of movement to create happiness, meaning, and connection.

CONCLUSION:

Thanks for joining us! We’ll be back next week with a look at the next county and the next book prompt!