i wanted something light and short, so i listened to mindy kaling’s second book, “why not me?” plenty of laughs, and it made my five hour car trip feel a lot less awful.

I’m revisiting old favourites of mine - the first two books of the “achtsam morden” (mindful murder) series by Karsten Dusse. Unfortunately they’re German so probably not of much interest to you, but if you happen to speak it or come across a translation that I’m not aware of, do give the first book a try.

The protagonist is a lawyer mainly working for a mobster he doesn’t like. He’s increasingly unhappy with his work and life, and his marriage and the relationship with his little daughter are falling apart… until his wife forces him to go to a mindfulness seminar. When he starts applying the things he learns there, his life takes a dramatic turn as the results of his mindfulness are the death of his boss, him taking his place as the leader of a criminal enterprise and eventually using the enterprise’s resources to kill his opponents one by one and secure his daughter a place in kindergarten.
Especially the first book is a pleasant read both for the protagonist’s stoically mindful handling of increasingly violent and unlikely situations and for the actual exercises in mindfulness explained and demonstrated to the reader. You learn both why you should still love your parents-in-law even if you hate their guts (and how to do that) as well as how to correctly detonate a couple of hand grenades taped to a mobster’s nuts, all from the point of view of a very smart lawyer (which the author actually is in real life). In that the book is both educational and entertaining at the same time.

Alyaza what have been your favorite/most interesting book among the four?

the majority of my reading list would not make for particularly comfortable reading so i’ll just point you to the fairly normal pick from last year, which is I’m Glad My Mom Died