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Don Miller: Blue Like Jazz

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Title Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Author Don Miller
Publisher Thomas Nelson
Amazon Book Price $17.97   Link List $27.99
Audible Audio Price $10.49   Link List $14.98
Genre Christian Spirituality
Web Page/Blog http://donmilleris.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/donmilleris
I had heard about this book, but I never could figure out what the title meant. After listening, the title resolves like Miller’s words, offbeat yet powerful. This is a book of stories, set through the author’s life. There are great characters from Tony the Beat Poet, to Trendy Writer that set you into the story. Don is brutally honest with his feelings throughout the book which makes the story real. I could really relate to his life and recommend this book highly.
Audio Quality Good 5.0
Content An Offbeat Look at Christian Spirituality 4.5
Narration Scott Brick: Good But Not As Good as Don 4.0
Story Organization Set in Scenes, Somewhat Disjointed 4.0
Stickiness Thought Provoking: Very Sticky 5.0
Impression Powerful & Emotional Stories. Impactful 4.75
Recommendation Considering Christianity? Read This! 4.75
Overall You’ll laugh, You’ll Cry, You’ll See God’s Love 4.75

Quotation: “Cusswords are pure ecstasy when you are twelve, buzzing in the mouth like a battery on the tongue.”

Publisher’s Summary

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.”

In Donald Miller’s early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.

©2003 Donald Miller; (P)2008 Hovel Audio

blue-jazz-cover

Filed Under: Career Skills, Flow, Leadership, Motivation Tagged With: ,

Malcolm Gladwell: What The Dog Saw

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Title What The Dog Saw: And Other Adventures
Author Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher Little, Brown and Company
Amazon Book Price $17.97   Link List $27.99
Audible Audio Price $13.32   Link List $18.89
Genre Journalism, Essays
Web Page/Blog http://malcolmgladwell.com/
Twitter
Malcolm Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures” is a compilation of the author’s best work from his column at New Yorker Magazine. I found the book interesting and great fodder for small talk at parties. Finding out the amazing facts of hair dye, ketchup, and infomercial rotisserie ovens, will create provocative conversation at the water cooler and provide compelling insights that may change the way you look at things. While there were a couple of dreary chapters that went on too long, overall the book was insightful and just plain fun to listen to.
Audio Quality Good 5.0
Content Author’s Essays From New Yorker Magazine 4.5
Narration By The Author: Very Good 4.5
Story Organization Very Well Organized 4.5
Stickiness Thought Provoking: Very Sticky 4.5
Impression Collection of Interesting Stories 4.5
Recommendation Insightful Listen. You’ll Learn Something 4.5
Overall Malcolm Gladwell at His Best 4.5

Quotation: “You don’t start at the top if you want to find the story. You start in the middle, because it’s the people in the middle who do the actual work in the world.”

Publisher’s Summary

Over the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has become the most gifted and influential journalist in America. In The New Yorker, his writings are such must-reads that the magazine charges advertisers significantly more money for ads that run within his articles. With his #1 best sellers, The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, he has reached millions of readers. And now the very best and most famous of his New Yorker pieces are collected in a brilliant and provocative anthology.

Among the pieces: his investigation into why there are so many different kinds of mustard but only one kind of ketchup; a surprising assessment of what makes for a safer automobile; a look at how we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job; an examination of machine built to predict hit movies; the reasons why homelessness might be easier to solve than manage; his famous profile of inventor and entrepreneur Ron Popeil; a look at why employers love personality tests; a dissection of Ivy League admissions and who gets in; the saga of the quest to invent the perfect cookie; and a look at hair dye and the hidden history of postwar America.
For the millions of Malcolm Gladwell fans, this anthology is like a greatest hits compilation-a mix tape from America’s alpha mind

©2009 Malcolm Gladwell; (P)2009 Hachette

dog-saw

Filed Under: Career Skills, Flow, Motivation

Switch: Chip & Dan Heath

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Title Switch: How To Change Things
Author Chip & Dan Heath
Publisher Broadway Business
Amazon Book Price $12.98 List $26.00  Link
Audible Audio Price $17.15 List $24.50  Link
Genre Business, Career
Web Page/Blog http://heathbrothers.com/
Twitter
The Heath brothers offer a well developed path for implementing change in your organization or personal life. The authors concept involves three critical activities: 1. Direct the Rider (analysis and rational understanding); 2. Motivate the Elephant (emotional engagement); and 3. Shape the Path (environmental factors). The authors use a great deal of information and examples from other researchers. Overall this book is valuable as a concise collection of industry research and real-world examples. The authors did a great job of writing an engaging book on a complex subject.
Audio Quality Good 5.0
Content Informational 4.5
Narration Charles Knollenberg: Very Good 4.5
Story Organization Very Well Organized 4.5
Stickiness Great Metaphors: Very Sticky 5.0
Impression Change is Possible 4.5
Recommendation Great Personal Development Book 4.5
Overall This Book Can Change Your Life 4.75

Quotation: “” this concept simple enough to remember and flexible enough to use in many different situations.”

Publisher’s Summary

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?

The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed best seller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems, the rational mind and the emotional mind, that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people – employees and managers, parents and nurses – have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results:

The lowly medical interns who managed to defeat an entrenched, decades-old medical practice that was endangering patients.

The home-organizing guru who developed a simple technique for overcoming the dread of housekeeping.

The manager who transformed a lackadaisical customer-support team into service zealots by removing a standard tool of customer service

In a compelling, story-driven narrative, the Heaths bring together decades of counterintuitive research in psychology, sociology, and other fields to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern, a pattern you can use to make the changes that matter to you, whether your interest is in changing the world or changing your waistline.

©2010 Chip Heath; (P)2010 Random House

switch-book

Filed Under: Career Skills, Flow, Leadership, Personal Development Tagged With: , , ,

Linchpin: Seth Godin

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Title Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Author Seth Godin
Publisher Random House
Amazon Book Price $17.13 List $25.95  Link
Audible Audio Price $17.15 List $24.50  Link
Genre Business, Career
Web Page/Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/ThisIsSethsBlog
Review: I heard really good reviews of this book before I had a chance to listen to it. After downloading it, I started listening and I was quickly depressed. I found myself having to turn it off a few times, because it was almost all doom and gloom. Fortunately I had heard that it redeemed itself 2/3rds through so I kept going. The last part of the book was spectacular, and should be read by anyone in an unstable job or out looking for work. I had trouble following some of the ideas, but overall it’s one of Seth’s best.
Audio Quality Good 5.0
Content Inspirational 4.5
Narration By the Author: Very Good w Pauses 4.5
Story Organization Organized-Somewhat Hard to Follow 4.0
Stickiness Parts are Memorable 4.5
Impression Vignettes of Indispensable People 4.5
Recommendation Buy it if You Fear Losing Your Job 4.5
Overall One of Seth’s Best 4.5

Quotation: “You don’t become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to become indispensable is to be different. That’s because if you’re the same, so are plenty of other people.”

Publisher’s Summary

There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. Have you ever found a shortcut that others missed? Seen a new way to resolve a conflict? Made a connection with someone others couldn’t reach? Even once? Then you have what it takes to become indispensable, by overcoming the resistance that holds people back.

As Godin writes, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.”

©2010 Seth Godin; (P)2010 Random House

linchpin-book

Filed Under: Career Skills, Flow, Leadership

Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Title A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Author Don Miller
Publisher Thomas Nelson
Amazon Book Price $12.97 List $19.99  Link
Audible Audio Price $12.47 List $17.49  Link
Genre Motivational, Biographies
Web Page/Blog http://donmilleris.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/donmilleris
Review: Don Miller has a way with words. His story draws you in and paints a picture through the his descriptive eyes. As he is presented with the chance to make a film about his life, he realizes that his life is rather boring. He embarks on a crusade to tell a better story. From a trip to the top of the mountains in Peru to a bike ride across America, you’ll be drawn in and motivated to create your own powerful story. This book may change the way you look at life. If nothing else it may prompt you to turn off the TV and walk out the front door into adventure. Highly recommended.
Audio Quality Good 5.0
Content Motivational 4.5
Narration By the Author: Very Good 4.5
Story Organization Somewhat disjointed 4.0
Stickiness Very memorable 5.0
Impression Powerful story 4.5
Recommendation Buy it and create your own story 4.5
Overall One of the best this year 4.75

Quotation: “...in living a great story, we defy a dark force propagating what I believe to be a lie, that a human life is not worth living, that the story you have living within you is not worth living.”

Publisher’s Summary

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie. Years after writing his best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another. But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don’s life for film – changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative – the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges listeners to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

©2009 Thomas Nelson; (P)2009 Thomas Nelson

Author Video: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m2500INV3K9Y4L

don-miller-million-miles-150

Filed Under: Communication, Flow, Leadership, Motivation, Personal Development Tagged With: , ,

The Noticer: Andy Andrews

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Orange Beach, Alabama, is a simple town filled with simple people. But they all have their share of problems—marriages teetering on the brink of divorce, young adults giving up on life, businesspeople on the verge of bankruptcy, and many of the other obstacles that life seems to dish out to the masses.

Fortunately, when things look the darkest, a mysterious old man named Jones has a miraculous way of showing up.  A man of indiscriminate age and race with white hair and wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and carrying a battered old suitcase, Jones is a unique soul with angelic-like qualities.  Communicating what he calls “a little perspective,” Jones explains that he has been given a gift of noticing things about life that others miss. In his simple interactions, he speaks to that part in everyone that is yearning to understand why things happen and what they can do about it.

Filed Under: Flow, Leadership, Personal Development