{"id":44966,"date":"2025-03-14T23:03:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T03:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44966"},"modified":"2025-03-14T23:03:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T03:03:49","slug":"review-of-the-joy-document-by-jennifer-mcgaha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44966","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Joy Document, by Jennifer McGaha"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Joy Document<\/p>\n

Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jennifer McGaha<\/p>\n

Broadleaf Books, 2024. 196 pages.
\nReview written February 28, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com<\/p>\n

When I saw the book The Joy Document<\/em>, it was just after I had finished going through Champagne for the Soul<\/a><\/em>, by Mike Mason, with my church small group. I’d previously gone through it in probably 2017 with a different small group – and it’s still my favorite book for small group study. It’s all about Joy – with 90 meditations for 90 days of looking for Joy, including a Bible verse about Joy on each day. Reading and discussing the book got my group noticing and talking about our Joys each week.<\/p>\n

So when I saw The Joy Document<\/em>, I thought, Wonderful! It’s a secular version of Champagne for the Soul<\/em>! But I’m afraid it wasn’t that. So my expectations limited my appreciation a little bit.<\/p>\n

What is it? Well, it’s also about noticing things in an ordinary life that surprise, delight, or intrigue you. The book is a collection of short essays – the kind I like to call “musings” about ordinary things. Yes, they left me smiling. And yes, I appreciate her practice of looking a little deeper at the details of life, finding her way to wonder.<\/p>\n

And I think my favorite part was the list at the back of questions to ask in order to make your own Joy Document.<\/p>\n

In fact, that helps me put my finger on what might be the difference between the two books. In Mike Mason’s book, every short entry, besides being about his experiences, was also about how the reader can apply the ideas. In this book, we got all fifty musings – and then at the end were ideas for applying the thoughts from the rest of the book.<\/p>\n

But for both, the underlying thought is this: There are many reasons for Joy out there, if we will open our eyes to them.<\/p>\n

And this book, too, helped me do just that.<\/p>\n

jennifermcgaha.com<\/a>
\nbroadleafbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Nonfiction\/joy_document.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Joy Document Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight by Jennifer McGaha Broadleaf Books, 2024. 196 pages. Review written February 28, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com When I saw the book The Joy Document, it was just after I had finished going through Champagne for the Soul, by Mike Mason, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-nonfiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45009,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44966\/revisions\/45009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}