Tag: Review Copy

ARC, Books

Book 471: Ray and Joan – Lisa Napoli

Geoff W

What a fascinating story. I figured it would be, I mean it’s about the guy who made McDonald’s what it is today and his wife who gave away billions of dollars, but I was still surprised at just how fascinating it was.

When Dutton reached out to me about a copy of the book* I jumped at the chance because not only do I find philanthropy personally fascinating, but I also work in fundraising, so it was a win-win either way for me.

I mean the subtitle “The man who made the McDonald’s fortune and the woman who gave it all away,” caught my attention pretty quick because I knew nothing about the founding of McDonald’s or the people behind it. I had no idea about most of it.

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ARC, Books

Book 470: The Power of Kindness – Piero Ferrucci

Geoff W

Similar to Finding the Blue Sky, I’m not sure whether this one was great because of its own goodness or because of the three bad ones I read before by Miguel Ruiz.

The publisher, Tarcher Perigee sent me an unsolicited copy of this book and I’m glad I read it.* They’ve really got either a good editorial team or a great lineage of what to print because they’ve been much more hit than miss, which I know I’ve mentioned previously.

It’s going to be hard not to compare this one to Finding the Blue Sky for two reasons: I read them back-to-back and they’re very similar. I almost wish the two authors worked together on the book because they both would’ve been strengthened by it.

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ARC, Books

Book 469: Finding the Blue Sky – Joseph Emet

Geoff W

Unlike the last three books by Miguel Ruiz, this book seemed to really make sense to me and didn’t offend me with it’s contradictory stories and lessons.

I didn’t plan to end the year with a bunch of self-help books, but because work took up so much of my time in the last third of the year I’m just now catching up on all the galleys I received.* That’s a sentence I never expected to write.

As someone who is incredibly skeptical of self-help books, religion, psychology, psychotherapy or really anything doing with the mind or the ethereal, I’m not only surprised at how many I’ve read this year, but I’m also surprised at how many I appreciated. I still think there is a time and place for all of the thing above, but I’ve found that when they are well written (which most of Tarcher Perigee’s seem to be) they’re worth some time investment, but not too much!

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ARC, Books, Personal Project, Professional Development

Book 465: A Truck Full of Money – Tracy Kidder

Geoff W

Ugh. (Nothing to do with the book, which I quiet enjoyed.)

This is what I get for not responding to my reading of the book in a timely manner. Like the other book published this week (You Will Not Have My Hate), this has been sitting in my queue to be responded to for almost an entire month.

I wish I could say what took me so long to respond but I have no idea. I’ve just been so busy at work and with Thanksgiving that I dropped the ball. Unfortunately that means my normal Opening and Closing Lines at the end aren’t there because this was a book from NetGalley* and by time I went to write this, they’d already archived it 🙁

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ARC, Books

Book 462: The Courtesan – Alexandra Curry

Geoff W

When Dutton reached out to me about a copy* of this book for its new paperback release I jumped at it because of my trip to China this summer! What I didn’t realize was that it was predominantly set in two of the cities I visited: Suzhou and Beijing! It was really neat to read through the fictionalized life of Sai Jinhua and actually feel like I know what and where she was talking about for the post part!

This is a debut novel that I probably would not have read just because I don’t read too many, but with my trip to China, the cover and having someone reach out to me about it, I figured I would give it a chance and I’m glad I did. Add in that the book also featured a subplot line about the one non-English classic from Asia I chose for my Classics Club list: Dream of the Red Chamber and it was well worth the read.

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