The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price
When I was putting together the 2022 Everyday Reading Book Club list, I was so all over the place about the January book.
Nothing felt quite right.
Then I saw The Power of Fun, which was just a few days from release and had already been selected as a Editor’s Pick for non-fiction by the Amazon team and I knew immediately this was the book I wanted for January.
If there’s one thing a lot of us could use going into 2022, I think it’s probably a little more fun in our lives.
I just finished reading The Power of Fun over the weekend and it is PHENOMENAL.
I listened to it over Christmas break (you can get it for free on audio here!) and I loved it so much and talked endlessly about it to anyone who would listen. It’s going to be SO FUN to chat about all this month.
the power of fun by catherine price
The Power of Fun is broken into two parts – the first part is basically a breakdown of what IS fun (hint: it’s not mindlessly scrolling on TikTok or watching Netflix until all hours of the night) and why we’re so bad at having real fun.
The second part of the book is called “How to Have Fun” and it’s PACKED with useful ideas for how to actually make true fun a part of your life. It starts with the Fun Audit and goes through chapters like Find Your Fun and Make Space.
There are some truly fascinating things around fun that I hadn’t considered before – I REALLY loved the section about Attracting Fun where she talked about creating playgrounds (basically just space, either physical or figurative, for fun to happen) and how one person can destroy that playground. For instance, say you’re playing a game of Mafia and everyone is really into it, using funny voices, making outrageous accusations and overall just building a really great playground for fun. And one person is sitting back on the couch, rolling their eyes, and mumbling along when they absolutely have to participate. That person is destroying the playground everyone is building, making it harder for everyone else to get into flow and making others feel self-conscious about participating in that playground.
I could immediately think of so many instances where that had happened (including some where I was the playground destroyer) and how much I do NOT want to be that person. I want to be fully engaged and in flow and make it possible for others too!
And she shared so many great examples that had my creative juices flowing with ways to make our family life, my marriage, and my friendships more playful and connected. It’s just a goldmine of fun.
By the way, you may know Catherine Price’s name from her excellent book How to Break Up With Your Phone so it won’t surprise you that The Power of Fun talks a lot about screens and phone usage. Our phones are constantly in our hands and make it hard for us to feel like we have time to have fun or trick us into thinking that social media or shows are our best options for fun. If you’re looking to reduce your screen time usage this year, this book is an extremely useful kickstart to that too. (I also like that she’s totally non-judgemental about it. She talks about her own screen time issues and how they’re designed to be addicting. I found it very motivating, not a guilt trip).
The Power of Fun is one of those books where I kind of want to force copies on everyone I know – it’s just SO good and so useful and truly the perfect book to start off a year of more enjoyment, true fun, and connection.
Are you reading along with us this month? I hope you will!
Did we ever learned what the planner was that she mentioned in the book?
It’s Goal Crazy!
Really excited to read this!
I really loved this book! Thank you for picking it for book club.