ARC, Books

Book 597: Let Go of Emotional Overeating and Love Your Food – Arlene Englander

Toward the middle of last year I started accepting fewer and fewer unsolicited review requests, but periodically a few come up from publicists or publishers I’ve worked with previously and this was one of them.

As a larger guy, (are guys plus sized?) I’ve always been curious about over eating and overeaters anonymous, but there are so many other books to read that I never looked into them. So when the publicist reached out to me about this back in July 2017, I figured why not.* That being said, I should be ashamed I didn’t get around to reading it until early 2018 though.

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ARC, Books

Book 563: You Are Not Alone – Debbie Augenthaler

When the publicist reached out to me about this book I said yes.* I didn’t know if I wanted to say yes, because my mother had passed only weeks before, but I knew at some point I would want/need to read this.

In many ways, I wish I would’ve read it sooner or at the very least before I read Grief Works. What I was looking for in Grief Works, an in-depth “this was my experience of grief” story and this is how I survived, struggled, thrived, etc.

I teared up a few times reading this one, not so much because of my experience (although that did happen at least once), but because of how heartfelt and how beautifully written Augenthaler’s work is. She goes in-depth into what feel like the four stages of grief and even talks about them at some point, but on the whole she stays pretty far away from psychotherapy babble and writes about her personal experience.

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ARC, Books

Book 554: Grief Works – Julia Samuel

When the publicist reached out with a copy of this, I wasn’t sure I was ready after my mother’s death at the end of last year.* They reached out within the first couple of weeks and I was so caught up in dealing with everything you have to deal with from a planning and organization perspective that comes with death, that I wasn’t even really thinking about the physical and emotional perspectives. Ultimately, I said yes thinking I would eventually need something like this, but not sure when.

When we packed for our trip to Mexico I threw it in our bag, I figured what better place to open up the emotional turmoil than on a beautiful beach hundreds of miles away from everywhere to start processing things. And that’s sort of what happened, but not really. Continue reading “Book 554: Grief Works – Julia Samuel”

ARC, Books

Book 541: How to Own Your Own Mind (The Mental Dynamite Series #2) – Napoleon Hill

Starting this book felt like I opened a door mid-conversation almost a century ago. Behind it were two gentleman sitting in a preserved gentleman’s lounge or office. I could almost smell the old leather furniture and the faint scent of cigars and I could see the wood paneling vividly as the two men leaned in to confer about titans of industry. And this is the problem with The Mental Dynamite series.

When I got my copy from the publisher*, I wasn’t sure I was going to read it. After the first book, The Path to Personal Power, and my not great reaction to it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to trudge through the racist, misogynist, heterosexist past. It’s not like they went out of their way to be these things and I’m not excusing them, but it’s rough to read. Continue reading “Book 541: How to Own Your Own Mind (The Mental Dynamite Series #2) – Napoleon Hill”

Books, Professional Development

Book 535: Nudge – Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

I’m really taking to heart all of the articles I read about the most successful people and I’m trying to read one nonfiction book that will teach me something every month this year. I just looked back on all my stats from the last year and I’ve averaged 16 nonfiction books a year.

I’m still not 100% sure what list I saw this on, but I picked up a copy back in August of 2016. It was probably when I started reading about the importance of mental acuity and keeping your mind sharp and constantly learning how to do new things. That or it was when I was dealing with some craziness at work and needed all the advice I could get! Pick any number of these professional development books and you’ll see what I mean, specifically those dealing with conflict.

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