The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck

Written By Linda Malek
Screenshot 2021-04-30 at 17.58.55.png

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson
Reviewed by Linda
📙📘📕📗

We currently live in an age where everyone suffers from stress, anxiety, and just caring waaay too much about what people think about every step we make. Personally, ever since I was told by my Design Technology teacher in Year 7, to take a chill pill when I freaked out about making the wonkiest wooden box in history, I have learnt to not give AF when I can help it and consequently applied this motto to most things in life... This book was a great reiteration of my DT teacher's advice and one I think we can all benefit from. This book is about giving the right number of f*cks and striking the right balance of f*cks to give - NOT to not give AF at all as one may perceive from the douchey cover! Unlike other self-help books, this is a hilarious one, particularly as Mark Mason draws from his own colourful life experiences and invites us to care about what's important and let the rest take care of itself

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

Previous

The Checklist Manifesto
Next

The Sport of Kings