Water from My Heart by Charles Martin is about Charlie Finn, a successful gambler and drug dealer who decides to straighten out when he realizes his and his partner's business is negatively affecting his partner's son and young daughter who comes close to death. He becomes attracted to three women, Shelly, Amanda and Leena but really only falls in love with one. In Nicaragua, he has quite an adventure!
This book moved along quite slowly; however, I found myself liking and rooting for Charlie to succeed. Things picked up when he went after Zaul in Nicaragua and met Paulina and Paulo. I liked the story, but not the writing. It jumped around in time too much for my taste and I almost gave up on it. The only thing that kept me reading was knowing Charlie was going to have a change of heart. The theme can be summed up by the line, "Love with Legs" meaning showing love with your actions.
(Karen's review, 4 stars)
Teaser from page 5: I was attracted to risk and not attracted to anything resembling hard work that benefited someone other than me. If you were going to be dumb enough to risk your money in a card game, then I was going to be smart enough to take it from you.
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Originals—How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant is an interesting non-fiction book about developing creativity and how certain creative individuals have changed the world. Much of it is about corporations but the second half is more about ways in which to get creative ideas accepted by others and encouraging creativity. As I was reading, some things really caught me interest and I wish I had a pen and paper to take some notes. There were some parts that bored me which I skipped. I was happy to find that at the end is a nice summary of the key points that interested me most! I was also pleasantly surprised to see that I finished the book much sooner than expected because so many of the last pages are references.
Here are the points I found interesting:
• Procrastinate strategically—(like dad did) mull things over, don’t be in a rush to get something done ahead of schedule.
• Seek feedback from peers.
• Highlight 3 weaknesses of idea to give reasons not to support it, especially if presenting it to those opposing it, then invite them to name more which helps them see it’s not so bad after all.
• Don’t try to calm down when anxious, get excited instead!
• Welcome criticism.
• Link good behaviors to moral character when complimenting children (You have been very helpful. You are a kind person.)
• Explain how bad behaviors affect others to promote empathy and guilt to get people to change their behavior.
• Emphasize values over rules.
• Youngest ones in family are generally bigger risk takers, comedians and more creative than first-borns.
(Karen's review, 3 stars)
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Don't know why libraries can't put their stickers on the back!
Ruby by Lauraine Snelling is a good read about Ruby and her younger sister Opal (9 yrs. Old) who move to the Dakota territory from the east when their father sends for them just before he dies to give them their inheritance. It’s hardly a town at all with just a saloon/brothel, the Dove House that they inherit and another saloon, small store and a few other buildings. No sheriff, no children, no school, no church. The father’s dying wish was that Ruby would take care of the girls. She promised him she would before she finds out that they are prostitutes. Ruby is very uptight about everything and Opal is fun loving, friendly and adventurous. Ruby decides to stay only because she promised her father so decides to discontinue serving liquor, and the brothel, changing it into a respectable hotel that serves food and coffee. She agreed to permit the card room to stay open for gambling certain hours and let Belle run it.
I enjoyed this book very much because it was interesting to see how Ruby persuaded the others in the business to stay on and help change things. I liked Opal better than Ruby. I didn’t understand why Ruby did not pray more in this Christian fiction book than she did when she kept running into so many problems and challenges. It seemed she just complained a lot, yelled a lot and bossed people around, expecting Charlie to take care of everything. If you like historical fiction, I would recommend this book. Although it is classed as Christian fiction, I didn’t really find all that much Christianity in it.
(Karen's review, 5 stars)
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I was very disappointed in “Minding Frankie” by Maeve Binchy. First off, I expected Frankie to be a boy and instead it was a baby girl. I was happy when I finally finished this book. It just dragged along for me. It is about a community in Ireland. The main story line is how a bunch of people help Noel, a single alcoholic dad take care of his baby girl that came as a surprise to him. The whole novel only covers the first year of Frankie’s life.
This book is like a soap opera in that there were so many different story lines, none of which I was really interested in. Other characters are Emily, the do-gooder cousin from America, Moira the social worker, Lisa who moves in with Noel because her life is a mess, Charles and Josie who are Noel’s parents that seek to build a statute to a dead saint. There are lots more characters too, all with their own story lines as well. I’d say this book is generally about how people live and how they need one another. It does show how a baby can change everything.
I found this book very boring for the most part. The only excitement was when Frankie was missing for a bit. The ending was good but it took forever to get there.
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You Already Know How To Be Great by Alan Fine is a model for performing at your full capacity and helping others do the same. The author, Alan Fine, has served as a performance coach to corporate executives, top athletes and musicians. He shares his very practical method for improving performance by increasing one's faith that they can do something, one's fire (desire) and one's focus by decreasing the interference (obstacle) that is hurting the performance. Sometimes we know what we want to do and even how to do it but we are lacking in at least one of those areas; thus, not performing to our full capacity. You Already Know How To Be Great has questions at the end of each chapter to help you apply the principles plus even a cute picture of an on-line community reminder.
I really liked the examples he gave to illustrate how his model can be used in parenting, teaching, sports. Alan Fine gives the reader dialogue of specific training sessions. I felt like a little mouse getting to listen in. In this book you can learn the G.R.O.W. method to use in reaching decisions quickly and making meetings meaningful.
I recommend You Already Know How to Be Great as a reference book to anyone who wants to improve their performance in any area of their life or who is in a leadership position and seeks to help others improve performance.
Want to find out more? Here is a video of Alan Fine talking about You Already Know How To Be Great which includes some illustrations from the book:
To enter our giveaway for an autographed copy by Alan Fine of You Already Know How To Be Great, just leave us a comment stating you would like to win along with anemail address so we can contact you if you are a winner. We will choose a total of FIVE winners on November 25, Thanksgiving Day! Winners will be notified by email and will have until Nov. 28 to give us their mailing address or someone else will be chosen. (This giveaway will also be promoted on Blog Jog day coming Sunday, November 21 so you could enter then too.)
(We received a free copy of this book for review.)
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Are You Ready To Be Your Own Boss by Carol Denbow is a great little handbook for anyone considering starting up a business and being self-employed. It gives warnings about things people should be aware of before taking the plunge, making it very clear that it takes long hours and lots of work to be successful in running a profitable business. The author shares her personal success story about running a horse-boarding ranch. It lists further resources including books and web sites in the back which would be helpful to any entrepreneur. I finished this in two days.
You can purchase this on Amazon or from her website at Author's Box.
