First, Break All The Rules: What The Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently

Yes, this is another one of those 'how to be an effective manager' books.  No, this one is not the same as the rest.  I often find management books to come from the perspective of 'me, the author'.  They preach and like to talk about what's worked for them, and why they are great managers. 

This book is different from the rest.  This book spends the first chapters explaining the RESEARCH behind the opinion.  Not once does the author says 'in my experience' or 'this worked for me, I'm great'.  What the author does do is refer to the research that was done in many different organizations, sizes, industries, countries, etc.  The author used an independent research firm to ask thousands of questions, and conduct hundreds of interviews.  Then they analyzed the data.  They found 12 questions that were accurate indicators of effective managers.  Effective managers have the most engaged employees, lowest turnover, and highest output.  This is not only a good read for current and aspiring mangers, but anyone who works on corporate culture and HR, or anyone who is curios about how some organizations thrive and others don't.

~Kelly

Wonder

Wonder by R. J. Palacio is the story of August Pullman's fifth grade year.  August is different from the other students for a couple of reasons:  he's never been to a real school before and he has a genetic mutation that caused him to be born with a facial deformity. 

This is a wonderful children's book.  I'd actually recommend it for kids and adults alike.  Auggie is a character you really care about and can relate to; since everyone has felt like they didn't belong at some point or another.

The book is written from the perspective of many characters (Auggie, some of his friends, his sister, etc.), so you see how Auggie's struggles affect the lives of everyone he knows.  It is a wonderful story about kindness, cruelty, acceptance, friendship and love.  With the amount of bullying that goes on with kids today, I highly recommend kids and their parents read this book.

With or Without You

With or Without You:  A Memoir by Domenica Ruta is the story of how a young girl (raised by a very troubled women), realizes as an adult that the only way to save herself is to leave behind the one she can't seem to quit.

Oh, how I am drawn to a memoir about troubled families.  I don't know why I find them so engrossing but I do.  In this case, Ruta mostly talks about her dysfunctional relationship with her drug addicted, narcissistic and manipulative mother.

It was well written, authentic and brought up the proper emotions that the stories she was telling elicited.  Like many memoirs, it goes back and forth in time and tells stories that are painful to read.  I think what I enjoyed most about Ruta's style is how her personality really comes through.  A lot of times when I'm reading memoirs, it feels like the author is telling you about what happened but not about how it sits with them today.  I felt like the brokenness of Ruta was tangible to the last page and beyond.  Definitely a good read if you are into memoirs.

The BFG

The BFG by Roald Dahl is the story of a young girl named Sophie who is taken to the land of giants by the BFG.  There Sophie and the BFG decide to take a stand against the other giants (who are human bean eaters!) with the help of a powerful ally.

One of my SIL's recommended this read.  It's a children's book and would be a great read aloud for kids 7+.  It was a pretty quick read and I think kids would like the way the giant talks. 

It has themes of friendship, education and morality.  Since it deals with giants coming after kids while they are sleeping, I wouldn't recommend reading it to little ones before bed.  It would make a great classroom or independent read for elementary kids though.

The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet

The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone is half non-fiction and half cookbook.  The book is informational about vegan/vegan macrobiotic diet and is broken up into three parts.  The first part is information about "Kind vs Nasty" foods.  The second section is about different levels of the "Kind Diet" which Silverstone labels as "Flirting, Vegan and Superhero".  The third part of the book is recipes.

Being a semi-vegetarian/pollo-pescetarian (the only meat I consume is poultry and occasional seafood), I have always been interested in veganism.  It seems so very hard to me (since I LOVE my eggs and cheese) so I thought this book would be an opportunity to learn more about it. 

 

I really enjoyed part one of this book.  A lot of vegetarians are vegetarians because of the cruel treatment of animals in our country's factory farming system.  This of course is reason enough to become a vegetarian, but Silverstone also discusses the impact that the meat/dairy industries have on our environment.  She has some really great arguments about how cutting out meat and dairy will not only be kind to animals, but kind to our environment and our own bodies.

 

I also enjoyed part two of this book, since it broke things down into different levels of veganism.  The Flirt kind of dabbles with things, the Vegan abstains from all meat and dairy and the Superhero is hardcore.  While I don't plan on being a Superhero anytime soon, I found some information and products in the Vegan section that I might try at some point. 

 

Part three focused on the recipes and I'll admit I did not read all of the recipes word for word.  Each has a little intro and a list of ingredients and then goes into the details of how to make the recipes.  I found some of the ingredients would be something I wouldn't use/would be very hard to find in my area.  Some of the vegan recipes looked pretty good though!

 

I enjoyed Silverstone's writing style, very light and easy.  It felt like you were chatting with a girlfriend but getting a lot of information at the same time.  The Superhero "diet" isn't something I'm interested in and a lot of the vegan things she mentioned included soy products (which I am wary of) but I feel like I learned a lot and could make some changes in my diet to eliminate some of the dairy I eat. 

I'd recommend giving this book a read if you are interested in healthy living, veganism or just learning more about how consuming meat and dairy is harsh on animals and our environment.  I also highly recommend watching the moving Food, Inc. if you haven't yet.  Very eye opening to our nation's food industry.

The Potty Mouth at the Table

The Potty Mouth at the Table by Laurie Notaro is a collection of humorous essays about the many everyday things Notaro finds infuriating, hilarious, mortifying and mind boggling.

I have been a big fan of Laurie Notaro for many years now and love the majority of her books.  All of her collections of essays are funny and relatable, which is why I like her so much.  She has a very sarcastic, dry and wonderful sense of humor.  She thinks things we all think and says things some of us only wish we could say. 

The Potty Mouth at the Table is another hit for Notaro in my book.  I'll keep pre-ordering her books and devouring them as long as she keeps writing things to make me laugh, gag, get misty-eyed and nod in agreement.  Highly recommend this book and all of the other essay collections she has written.  (Note:  Notaro has also written two fiction novels.  They are okay, but I prefer her essays).

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story by Michael Hainey is the story of a man who went on a quest for the truth about his father's death.  Michael Hainey's father died when he was just six years old and after years of no one talking about it and things not adding up, he decided to seek the truth for himself.  He does this by digging up old files, interviewing people who knew his dad, ect.  In the end, he learns more about his father and himself.

The plot summery of this book immediately caught my attention.  My mother passed away when I was young as well and I've always had a lot of unanswered questions about it.  I was intrigued to see what this man would be able to discover and what he would do with those discoveries.

The book itself was a little wordy for my taste (lots of descriptions of places, people and time periods) but overall was well written.  The author takes the reader back and forth in time, and in doing so paints a very clear picture of what life was like when he was growing up. 

I was a bit disappointed in the story after he finds out what really happened to his father.  I wish it revealed more about how he and his immediate family felt after the discovery was made, but perhaps he didn't want to go into detail about that and wanted to keep the emphasis on his journey rather than the results.

Overall, it was a pretty good read.  I won't be adding it to my list of favorites, but it was a well written and interesting book.