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Bed Rest: A Novel by Sarah Bilston
The back cover proclaims, "Sarah Bilston reads like Sophie Kinsella's big sister – a bit more serious, a little wiser, just as irresistible." Since I loved, loved, loved Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess, (a novel about a London attorney who accidentally takes a job as a housekeeper), no surprise that I liked this book as well. Our heroine, "Q", a British lawyer married to an American lawyer and living in New York City, is put on bed rest half way through her pregnancy. She has to deal with the emotional turmoil of her bed rest, her husband’s workaholic, just-about-to-come-up-for-partnership lifestyle, and her quirky family. What I would have liked a little more of is to see what Qs life as a lawyer was like before the bedrest. Also, I found it a little unrealistic that she could drop her work so quickly – I know pregnant female lawyers who put in more than a few billable hours while on bedrest, even while in the hospital. Sad, but true.
The Insiders' Guide to Relocation: Expert Advice to Move Across the State, the Country or the World by Beverly Roman
Organizing Plain and Simple: A Ready Reference Guide with Hundreds of Solutions to Your Everyday Clutter Challenges by Donna Smallin
Positive Moves: The Complete Guide to Moving You and Your Family Across Town or Across the Nation by Carolyn Janik
Moving Without Madness: A Guide to Handling the Stress & Emotions of Moving by Arlene Alpert
Smart Moves: Your Guide Through the Maze of Relocation by Audrey McCollum, MSW, Nadia Jensen, Ed.D., Stuart Copans, MD
First, we were going to move. Then we weren't. Then we were. Now we're definitley not. But to be prepared I checked out everything our library has on the subject, figuring that if we did move on short notice, I would be too busy packing and such to do a whole lot of reading. The four books listed above are in order, top to bottom, of most recommended to least recommended. As always, anything that makes my "recommended" list will have an Amazon link on the left sidebar (although I am a bit behind in getting those up).
Insider's Guide to Relocation – this is the best of the bunch, with plenty of checklists and chapters for special situations, such as foreign relocations and advice for the career-interrupted spouse (i.e., if you are relocating because your spouse has a new job and now you have to find a job in the new location). Lots of resources and a related website.
Organizing Plain & Simple – even though this book had only one chapter on moving, it was extremely helpful.
Positive Moves - helpful, but this book, written by a "real estate expert", emphasizes the real estate aspects of relocation: putting your house on the market, mortgages, etc., and is generally more geared towards company moves. Best tip for moving: in your new home, tack up a street map to the dining room wall. Mark all the important spots – schools, work, grocery stores, friends’ houses, etc. This will help orient you and your children to your new hometown.
Moving Without Madness – Focuses on the Physical, Emotional, Social, Mental, and Spiritual needs of a relocating person. I need to write a book, because if Arlene Alpert can write one, so can I. Summary: moving is tough.
Smart Moves - Summary: moving is tough, and experts think so too. Explores the difficulties of moving in excruciating detail, as only a psycotherapist, an early education specialist, and a psychiatrist can do. Some good suggestions for helping children deal with the move and information about what their concerns might be at different "ages and stages". Generally, however, this book just points out all the different ways you have to be miserable while moving.
Get Clark Smart: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Rich from America’s Money-Saving Expert by Clark Howard.
I was really excited about this book. The cover proclaims: “Hundreds of Tips for Saving Money and Investing Wisely!”. How disappointed I was to find that the very first chapter of the book is entitled “Buying a New Car.” I read no further. No one is going to get rich buying a new car. Buying new cars is what you get to do after you have become rich. The man obviously lacks a fundamental understanding of money.
This is an amazing story.
No, not Hunters of Dune
Frank Herbert is ranked with the greatest Science Fiction writers. He penned the award-winning Dune in the mid-1960s and, before his death in 1986 wrote five sequels (Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune). He also co-wrote Man of Two Worlds with his son, Brian Herbert, and The Road to Dune with Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. Before his death, Frank Herbert discussed with his son his plans for a seventh Dune novel. As Herbert and Anderson explain in the Author's Note to Hunters of Dune:
In 1997, more than a decade after the death of his father, Brian began to discuss with Kevin J. Anderson the possibility of completing the project, of writing the fabled Dune 7. But apparently Frank Herbert had left no notes, and we thought we would have to do the project based solely on our own imaginations. After further discussions, we realized that a great deal of preliminary work needed to be completed before we could tackle Dune 7 - not just laying groundwork for the story itself, but also reintroducing the book-buying audience and a whole new generation of readers to the incredible, highly imaginative Dune universe.
More than twenty years have passed since the publication of Chapterhouse: Dune. while many readers loved the original classic Dune or even the first three books in the series, a significant portion of the audience had not continued all the way through to that last book. We needed to reawaken interest and get those readers prepared.
We decided to write a trilogy of prequels first... When we began to dig through all of Frank Herbert's stored papers in preparation for writing House Atreides, Brian was surprised to learn of two safe-deposit boxes that his father had taken out before his death. Inside the boxes, Brian and an estate attorney discovered a dot-matrix printout and two old-style computer disks labeled "Dune 7 Outline" and "Dune 7 Notes" - pages describing exactly where the creator of Dune had intended to take his story.
Bekah of The Road Well Traveled posts some comments on Leboyer's Birth Without Violence, and I respond.
The 1000 Good Books List from the Classical Christian Education Support Loop.
The Prodigal (Abram's Daughters) by Beverly Lewis
Book 4 in the Abram's Daughters series. The only problem is our library doesn't have book 5, The Revelation, so I am stuck with listening to it as an audiobook, or scrounging around for a used copy.
Financial Peace: Restoring Financial Hope to You and Your Family by Dave Ramsey
I'd been listening to David Ramsey's radio show and really enjoying it, so I must say this book was a bit of a disappointment. Mr. Ramsey talks about financial peace, and a hodgepodge of other issues such as investing and getting a good bargain on the things you buy. But he really does not go into detail on his "baby steps" (one short chapter at the end of the book), debt snowball, and other advice he is famous for, such as budgeting (another short chapter). I'm hoping his more recent books will be more usefull.
Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D.
If you've read The Millionaire Next Door, you know the basic setup for this book. It is a sociological approach to wealth; if the average millionaire is frugal, drives old cars, and drinks cheap domestic beer, do the same and you will get rich, too. In Millionaire Women, the author examines the ways in which female millionaires are different from male millionaires. This book had some good points, but way too much discussion on the relationship of women to their husbands and their parents. Frankly, I found the book boring and way too long.
Give Me a Break : How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media... by John Stossel
I read Stossel's Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity and really liked it (but haven't blogged it yet). Give Me A Break is ok, but not great. As Stossel explains, he wrote the book in order to say the things that, because of producers, advertisers, and lawyers, he couldn't say on ABC's 20/20. I don't agree with all his conclusions, but he does a great job at exposing commonly held myths and gets to the truth - although sometimes the truth is more complicated than he makes it out to be. I'm recommending this book, but you should skip it and read Myths, Lies instead.
Can She Be Stopped? : Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless . . .
Three thoughts on this book:
1) This book is a roadmap for the Republicans on how to prevent Hillary from getting elected. Now, is it really a good idea to come up with a strategy and then publish it for everybody, including the Democratic strategists, to read?
2) Mr. Podhoretz just doesn't make a good case against Hillary. He seems to be writing to an audience that is already convinced that she is the anti-Christ. While I am wary of a Hillary presidency, it's not because of anything he wrote in this book. He could have done a better job at the outset of building a case against her.
3) His ultimate solution, if you don't want to read the book, is that Rudolph Giuliani needs to run against her, and change his position on abortion to a pro-life stance (he maintains that every politician is entitled to change their position on this issue once and only once).
I'm recommending this book, because it is an interesting read, but only marginally.
The Sacrifice
The Betrayal
Books 2 and 3 in the Abram's Daughters series. I can hardly wait to read books 4 & 5 (tomorrow is library day. Yipee!).
Too much reading, not enough blogging! Here's what I've been up to:
Little Men
The Covenant
Money, A Memoir : Women, Emotions, and Cash
Life Laughs : The Naked Truth about Motherhood, Marriage, and Moving On
7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life : How to Live Well with the Money You Have
Dream BIG!: A Roadmap for Facing Life's Challenges and Creating the Life You Deserve
What these two books have in common are that they are both written by women of color who came from difficult circumstances yet became sucessful businesswomen. 7 Money Mantras begins:
The best financial planner I've ever known was my grandmother. Big Mama raised me, my two sisters, and my two brothers on a salary that never reached more than $13,000 a year.
Dream Big! is more inspirational than informational. Ms. Rosado Shaw has had a wild ride. Raised in the South Bronx, she attended (and flunked out of) Wellesley, yet went on to be a sucessful entrepreneur and public speaker.
Fired! : Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed
A while back I reviewed We Got Fired! : . . . And It's the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us
These two books actually make for a nice study in networking. MacKay has written a book (or two) on networking, and does it quite well. He managed to get such heavy hitters as Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg, Muhammad Ali, Robert Redford, Lee Iacocca, and Larry King to contribute their stories. Annabelle Gurwitch, on the other hand, is an actress and writter whose claim to fame is that she was once fired by Woody Allen. So it's her network that contributed stories to the book.
Of the two, I am going to recommend the MacKay book over the Gurwitch book. If you get fired and you need to laugh, read Gurwitch. If you need encouragement, read MacKay.
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
I don't know why I read so many books on management and marketing. I don't work outside the home; I'm not in the business world. I am a lawyer but I don't practice corporate law. I guess I was attracted to the phrase "getting things done" in the title.
Anyway, on the back cover, Michael Dell says "If you want to be a CEO - or if you are a CEO and want to keep your job - read Execution and put its principles to work." I'm not a CEO, and I'm guessing you aren't one either, so I'm not generally recommending this book. I found it dull with only a few small nuggets for "the rest of us". Even if you are a small business owner, not much here for you.
Overcoming Underearning: Overcome Your Money Fears and Earn What You Deserve
This book explores the emotional and psychological reasons why women in particular work for less than they are worth. Since I'm not employed right now, I gave it a light reading, but at some point I intend to really work through the issues presented. The author has also written a book titled Secrets of Six-Figure Women
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
There has been a lot of hype about this book lately. I would say it is worth about 80% - 85% of the hype. Put it on your "to read" list. It may not change your life, though.
Unclutter Your Home: 7 Simple Steps, 700 Tips & Ideas
If I were going to write a book about organizing and decluttering, this is the book I would write.