Pages We’ve Been Living In

FSM staff Shara and Natalie would like to share a few books with you that offer a glimpse into what we’ve been ruminating on lately.

In addition, FSM has an exciting announcement for you guys. FSM has recently released a new subscription model. Our new Goodies Subscription will provide you with FSM in print delivered right to your home, along with some exciting goodies!!

This month, our goodies consist of handmade bookmarks created by Shara and Natalie. These bookmarks would make a perfect companion for the book you've been reading.

Thank you for supporting FSM !!! We are so grateful to everyone who reads, supports, and shares it within our community.

• Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit, by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Spiritual ecology) is a non-fiction nature meditation blending memoir, scientific inquiry, and spiritual philosophy. It dives into the essential interconnectedness of humans with the natural world. It weaves together personal moments, science, and a kind of spiritual noticing, all in a way that feels really magical and fills me with awe.
• The Book of Joy by the 14th Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams (Non-fiction / Spirituality / Philosophy). This read feels like a really warm, thoughtful conversation about what it actually means to find joy, even in the middle of suffering. It blends personal stories, spiritual wisdom, and a bit of psychology in a way that feels really human and approachable. The book explores ideas like resilience, gratitude, and compassion. This is a book I find myself returning to often, within the hard moments of life. 
• Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (Literary fiction / Philosophical fiction). This book feels like a quiet, strange unfolding of a world where creation itself is still being imagined. It follows a daughter and father relationship, but it expands into something much larger—like a meditation on existence, meaning, and consciousness itself. It has this really dreamlike, abstract quality where reality feels fluid, highlighted especially in moments where the main character transforms into a leaf on a tree, and the boundary between human and nature dissolves. Her romantic relationship adds a layer of intimacy and longing, existing in the same soft, unreal space. The writing is simple but deeply philosophical, like thought and feeling blending into atmosphere.
• A Happy Death by Albert Camus (Philosophical fiction). This book feels like an exploration of what it means to live a meaningful life. It is tangled with questions about mortality, desire, and the strange shape of happiness. What really stands out is how beautifully and almost poetically it’s written. The atmosphere is humid and deeply contemplative, like you’re sitting inside someone’s thoughts while the world slowly presses in around them. It has this lingering emotional weight to it, where even small, mundane moments feel charged with meaning.
• Be Here Now by Ram Dass (Spirituality / Memoir). This book feels like a really introspective exploration of presence and self-awareness. It blends storytelling, Eastern philosophy, and these really beautiful illustrations that make the whole book feel like an art piece. It has this raw, personal quality, like you’re moving through someone’s inner experience rather than just reading it. At its core, it’s about letting go of ego and fully being in the moment. It invites you to slow down, reflect, and just be, showing how something so simple can also feel really expansive.

• Hope in the Morning by Courtney Peppernell (Poetry). This little poetry book is filled with, as the title would suggest, hope. While the poetry itself often describes hard or sad events, the piece as a whole reminds us that healing will come, it just takes time. Whenever I need a small pick-me-up (which is often these days), these poems are waiting to remind me that I can make it through.
• [Dis]Connected: Volume Two edited by Michelle Halket (Short Fiction collection). A collection of interconnected poetry and short stories from a variety of different authors. It reads like a creative writer game of "telephone", where a message is passed from one author's poem into another's short story.
• The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (Fantasy, Speculative Fiction). Told from first, second, and third perspectives, this novel tells the story of two men tasked with restoring an old god before the world falls apart. The novel presents the story from the perspective of "you" watching the events unfold as a mystical stage performance, all while trying to find out how "your" past fits within this strange time and place. On my own, I may not have found this novel. Through taking a course on speculative fiction last year, I was introduced to many unique novels, this being my favorite from that collection. The narrative style asks the reader to slow down and take the story in and to try and feel like you are a part of it, somehow.
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (Fiction). This book follows an elderly amusement park worker who, after dying on the job, meets five people his life intersected with. Sometimes, our actions have effects on others we never could have imagined. It's a beautifully written story that continues to stick with me and serve as a reminder that we are all connected, sometimes even to people we have barely known.
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (YA Fantasy). This book is the first of a duology and follows a group of six misfits as they attempt to pull off the most difficult heist anyone has ever tried. One of the things that pulled me in was the worldbuilding, which is best understood by reading the "Shadow and Bone" trilogy first, but the book did a good job of filling in the gaps. Outside of the action, magic, and mystery, each of the main cast has their outlooks challenged, and as a result, finds a sense of belonging with each other. Bardugo does a wonderful job at building suspense by only telling us readers the absolute necessary information, which lets the pieces all fall together in the end. If you're more of a fantasy watcher than reader, the "Shadow and Bone" tv series follows the world closely.