Giovanni Sticco’s The Very Groovy Book announces itself with a riot of colour: rainbow ripples, smiling daisies, a peace sign over a river valley, and bubbly cream lettering that could have come off a 1969 concert poster. Inside, the book goes quiet. Each of its 60-odd pages carries a single short mantra in plain black type on a white page. The contrast is a little jarring, but it also works as a design idea. The cover is the party, and the pages are the pause.
The book reads as a daily companion, meant to be opened anywhere. Its themes are gratitude, patience, self-kindness, impermanence and faith. The opening pages set the tone: every day is a fresh start, sadness is temporary, and life is a gift not to be wasted. Some of the best moments are the briefest. A line on being patient fits in two short lines, and “Life is like art. It’s perfectly imperfect” says its piece in seven words. Others are warm and practical, such as the page urging you to take a walk among trees and birds when you feel boxed in, or the one telling you to stop and breathe when you feel lost and don’t have to have all the answers today.
There is also a loose narrative thread. Around the midpoint, the “magical bus ride” pages invite readers to imagine waiting at a station for a bus to carry them away, and the mountain returns as a recurring image of peace and perspective. A reader who goes cover to cover will notice these motifs. A reader who dips in will simply find a quiet moment.
Sticco writes in a gentle, hippie-inflected register, with cosmic universes, vibrational tones, third eyes and the occasional “Can you dig it?” Faith runs through the second half, with pages addressed to God, the Lord and the Creator, and one ending in “Amen”. The mix of counterculture and devotion is sincere and gives the book its character, though readers who want one or the other may find the blend uneven.
The Very Groovy Book is a sincere, easygoing collection best suited to a bedside table, a desk or a gift for someone who needs a gentle nudge. It will not argue you into a new philosophy, and it does not try to. Its pleasures are small ones: a deep breath, a smile, a reminder to look at the trees.
