Audio Book : Year of Yes ! & The Stranger

I've been searching high and lo for Shonda Rhimes book : Year of Yes - How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be your Own Person, since last year. It was published Nov last year and I still haven't seen it around in local bookstores. 

Grey's new season 13 has just started last week, and I've been watching A LOT of Scandal lately - so at the office, I tried to find Shonda's Ted talk and her commencement speech at Youtube, until I came across her audio book. I didn't waited to just hit play and I listened to the whole book reading. Took 2 days of office hours to finish the 7 hours audio reading. But, yes, it was the best thing I listened to lately. Her inspiring stories, her motivational speeches, her problems, difficulties and how she coped with that. Everything about her as an introverted shy writer/successful TV producer is inspiring. I love how she relates her stories with the growth of her own Tv series over the years. I looooooove. I'm recommending her books to the world.

There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Being traditional is not traditional anymore. It’s funny that we still think of it that way. Normalize your lives, people. You don’t want a baby? Don’t have one. I don’t want to get married? I won’t. You want to live alone? Enjoy it. You want to love someone? Love someone. Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it. No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it. - Shonda Rhimes

Af said that not everyone can listen to audio stuffs and still focus on their work - like doing 2 things at once kind of thing. But I thought listening got nothing to do with other things that we are doing during that time? I forgot that he's a man, and men rarely can do several things simultaneously. For that, too bad.

Extra note :

I've been watching a lot of free iFlix lately. My current obsession is another Shonda Rhimes' series; Scandal starring the amazingly beautiful Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope, working in a crisis management firm along with her awesome sidekicks. I've never watched any of Scandal series until early this month and I already managed to almost end the forth season. Imagine my dedication!

I've been a big fan of Shonda Rhimes; the tv producer/writer for the past 10 years - when Grey's Anatomy was aired in those several early seasons in Malaysia. So my brother and I loyally followed all the updates and discussed on certain things that happened in the series for awhile now. We both are her dedicated loyal fans - and even watched the series front-to-back several times already, even though there are 12 seasons in counting, and know most of Grey's song, and read Grey's quotes randomly :D Like I said, we are both loyal fans of Grey's Anatomy.

So Scandal shouldn't be all too alien for me, I like the pace, the suspense, the character development, the tangled storylines, the nice perfect quotes, the new self-created words, the glimpse of all familiar faces from Grey's Anatomy + Private Practice - crossover *like Grey's parents, Jake, Stephanie, etc, the good-looking main characters, Olivia and of course, Fitz. Fitz, the president of US, the 'older' man I can't help to love. Ha.

*

After I finished the book, I listened to Albert Camus's novella - The Stranger, 1942. The original version was written in French, called L'estranger, a philosophical fiction. It's a first-person narrative so along the story, I was listening to the character's monologue before and after the incident that changed the course of his life. I loooooooooved it. Never really tried any of his other books even though I have one of his book : The Rebel for quite some time now. 

I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world. - Albert Camus

The book was so good, it was not enough.
Can't wait for his other audio books next week :D