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Tuesday Title: Oprah’s newest pick – a heady read indeed
I had to laugh at Oprah’s newest book club selection, which is a double book of Charles Dickens Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.
Oprah's Newest Book Selection
My son read Great Expectations over the summer for his school reading list and it took him a long time to get through. In fact for much of the summer I got to hear about how long a book it was and how difficult it was to get through. He much preferred Oliver Twist. For myself with the holidays around the corner I would recommend A Christmas Carol if you want to give a Dickens classic for the holidays! I’ll be curious to see if this Oprah selection does as well as some of her others.
With only 17 days left till Christmas here are our book choices for the hard to shop for folks on your holiday list this year!
Committed by the author of Eat, Pray, Love
Mom / Mother-in-Law – Legacy by Danielle Steel
Dad / Father-in-Law- American Assassin by Vince Flynn
Brother – I’ll Mature When I’m Dead by Dave Barry
Sister – Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
Grandparents – Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker
Happy shopping! Take advantage of ground shipping rates and relieve yourself of some holiday stress this week by tackling your hard to buy for gifts at www.BookBouquet.com!
Tuesday’s Title: Legacy by Danielle Steel…surprise it’s one of her best novels!
I’m not usually a fan of Danielle Steel novels, but I have to say I actually enjoyed Legacy.
Legacy, A Novel
I think it’s the best book she has put out in a number of years. It’s two stories in one actually. The main character has spent six years living a comfortable, quiet life and letting things just take her along for the ride. Then suddenly she loses her boyfriend and her job in the same week, and realizes she’s been sleeping through her thirties. Lost and insecure (yes, I’m stealing song lyrics) she takes a trip home to visit with Mom and decides to help her Mother with research she is doing on their family history.
This is where the second story comes into play. We get to also hear the story of Wachiwi, the kidnapped daughter of a Sioux Chief who ends up in France. Sounds crazy, but it’s compelling, based on actual history, and makes for great reading! I can give two thumbs up to Legacy!
If you are looking for a book to give this holiday season for your Mom, your Mother-in-Law, your wife or your sister then you won’t go wrong with The Legacy. At http://www.bookbouquet.com we make holiday shopping stress free. You’ll find you can give Legacy (and lots of other great books, too) in a variety of gift baskets including bath and book baskets, gourmet food baskets and even guilt free gift baskets.
Guilt Free Gourmet Gift Box
Friday’s Finds – Natural Remedies
In honor of cold and flu season, I’m featuring two natural remedies or prevention aids for all my readers!
Cold Sores Begone & Canker Sores Begone
Robin Barr, owner of Cold Sores Begone and Canker Sores Begone, reminded me that stress and changes in weather can bring on cold and canker sore eruptions. Cold Sores Begone can prevent a cold sore from erupting if applied at the “tingle,” and Canker Sores Begone can reduce the suffering time from a canker sore from the usual week or more to just a few days. Both are based on herbal ingredients and are safe to use, even for little children. You can pick up a bottle at many health food stores, or buy online.
Templeton's Timeless Infant Silver
Did you know that silver naturally prohibits bacteria growth? There’s some thinking that silver contributed to the higher survival rate for the wealthy class during ancient epidemics, because the rich had silver tableware, jewelry, and other objects that helped prevent disease! Templeton Silver makes a silver teething ring for babies, the Tug & Teethe Necklace, that is not only beautiful, and satisfying on the gums of a teething baby, but it also might help prevent the spread of germs. Founded by fellow mom Rhett Templeton, the company makes beautiful bijou bracelets too – pearl and silver tethers for pacifiers that can be worn as a bracelet.
Tuesday’s Titles – Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk…Reviewer Seeks How to Describe this Book
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris may best be described as fables for adults. Twisted fables with a healthy dose of ironic sarcasm thrown in for good measure. It’s not a laugh out load kind of book, but there is definitely a sense of humor about the whole thing. If I’m trying to place this for you it would be like the difference between food shows from Paula Dean and Anthony Bourdain. David Sedaris would appeal to the Anthony Bourdain fans.
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is made up of sixteen short essays, though I would call them fables, and ones without the happy tied up ending. It’s a light read in that each fable is only six to fifteen pages, but a heavy read with some of the subjects and dark humor. Each one takes a timeless issue and puts a modern day spin on it. Some of the writing is crude and some of the illustrations follow suit, so this may not be the book you want to give out at the office or to Grandma or Grandpa. More that fun uncle with the twisted sense of humor only some people tend to get.
Don’t let the cute cover lure you into thinking this is a cute book of fun fables! But since there is a squirrel on the cover and this would appeal to those twisted individuals in your family tree we recommend giving this book with our Nuts About You Book Bouquet!
Nuts About You Bouquet
Friday’s Finds – Wisdom of the Kitchen
I’ve been fortunate enough to have been able to build up my business from scratch without going to outside investors or borrowing money, but it’s not always possible for a business to get going without some outside capital. For very small women-owned businesses, it can be harder still. Yet women are so good at helping others – can’t there be a special way that a female entrepreneur can call on sympathetic women to help out with a business launch?
I’m excited to have learned that there is such a way – Wisdom of the Kitchen, an innovative way of bringing together women to fund women-owned businesses, founded by Stephanie Miller. Stephanie recently had a launch event where a group of businesswomen literally gathered in Stephanie’s kitchen in Los Angeles and heard three women present their business ideas, while Stephanie’s sister, a chef, prepared lunch for everyone. A further group of women participated via conference call. When the presentations were done, all participants could contribute to any or all of the businesses through the Wisdom of the Kitchen website. Check out the three businesses featured on the website: Healing Memorials, Fearless Beauty, and Kind Campaign, under the Give Now button.
Tuesday’s Titles – Life by Keith Richards…surprisingly coherent!
Who doesn’t want to read a memoir by Keith Richards? The question is, what does Keith Richards actually remember about his life? And, the great thing about this book is the writing is so effortless it’s like you’ve sat down with Keith to discuss the old days like you are old friends.
Life
In case you live under a rock, Keith Richards is the infamous guitar player for the Rolling Stones. Generally well known for rockin’ the guitar, being Captain Jack’s Dad in Pirates of the Caribbean (No. 3), and for liking booze, cigarettes and other vices way tooo much!
That being said you can imagine his story is not going to be boring or typical. You might think it would be crass and obnoxious, but it’s not that either. What you get is candid, unfiltered and fascinating stories from a rock legend. This is not just for Stones fans, rock hounds or aging groupies. If you love a good story you’ll love this book.
Mens Kosher Gift Box
We have to say go ahead get a Life! (or two, one for you one to give). If you want to give Life for the holidays this year we have tons of ways to spread the cheer from our Kosher Gift Box to our Best Seller Basket!
Best Seller Holiday Basket
Friday’s Finds – TMB Tax Services, LLC
When I’m about to delve into the shopping and shipping and food-buying season of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, I start to dread what follows: tax season! That uggy time of gathering receipts, totaling numbers, categorizing expenditures – it’s especially burdensome for business owners, isn’t it?
I’ve been looking through the members of Savor the Success, the women entrepreneur’s national networking group I belong to, for a woman-owned tax service that serves anyone in the USA, and I found Talibah Bayles, owner and operations manager of TMB Tax Services, LLC, a tax preparation company headquartered in Haymarket , Virginia. TMB can prepare federal and state tax returns for all states accepting returns. They offer a few twists too – they describe themselves as a mobile tax preparation service that will prepare your tax returns when and where it’s most convenient for you.
And here’s something even more unusual. They offer “TMB Tax Tea Parties” on Saturdays and Sundays. A hostess can invite her friends over for a party where everyone has her taxes prepared, and the hostess has her own tax return prepared free of charge. Depending upon how many guests attend, she can earn a cash bonus as well. This is an intriguing idea for investment clubs, church organizations, sororities, book clubs, etc., and is available anywhere in the USA.
If you’d like to get a head start on your tax return for this year, you might want to check out their on-site calculator for tax estimating for the year, and their checklist for itemized deductions.
Tuesday’s Titles – I must confess…I did not love The Confession!
The Confession
I get so excited for new John Grisham books, but I am slightly disappointed with The Confession. The fictional story is about a young black man who is given the death penalty for the murder of a white girl which he did not commit. Set in Sloane Arkansas, Grisham dives into the racial motives for the conviction, the need for a prosecutor to get a conviction in a high profile murder case, and the motives of the police when they need to get their man. These are familiar themes in Grisham’s stories and usually they work together to create great page turning novels that makes you stop and think at the same time.
I think in The Confession the author got so caught up with his need to convince the world that the death penalty is wrong that he ends up lecturing to his reader, and parts of the novel read like a law text book. I found myself plodding along at times rather than engaging with each new page. I’m also still wondering why the real killer confesses, other than that Grisham needs that to happen to prove the wrong guy received the death penalty. There is actually no clear motive other than he says he doesn’t want to see the wrong guy killed for his crime. A career rapist and murderer has a guilty conscience? Grisham is trying too hard to make a story fit into the moral view that he wants to propel.
So in The Confession I found myself in love for the first twenty pages, back in school and reading a textbook for much of the middle, engaged with the family of the man who is wrongly put to death, disturbed by the back story of the real killer and then kind of annoyed at the end when Grisham wraps things up. Is it worth reading, yes, but just don’t expect The Pelican Brief or The Firm from it. This book feels more contrived than other Grisham novels and in the end he might have been better off writing editorials for the newspapers than trying to make a novel around his position.
It is interesting that I just finished this book and in real life the news is filled with the story of the death penalty sentence handed down in Connecticut. I think if our legal system actually worked, most people would feel a life sentence is a just punishment, even more so than the death penalty. However, as long as parole is granted and we see felons let out, and going back and committing more crimes, then people won’t psychologically feel safe, and therefore will support a death penalty that is a guarantee that person won’t harm anyone ever again.
Want to weigh in on The Confession? There is a lively debate on the Amazon reviews section and so far it has a three and half star rating. Check it out here.
One of my fellow members of the women’s networking organization I belong to has recently released a really interesting book about worry, called Worried Sick – Break Free from Chronic Worry to Achieve Mental & Physical Health, by Karol Ward. Sounds good, right?
Here are some of the things I found in her insightful writings: Have you heard of the Three C’s to help you manage your ongoing worry? They’re Calmness, Clarity and Community. But you can’t just “make” those factors appear in your life. You must explore first who you are and how you function – and then the answers about finding the Three C’s in your life will begin to appear. There’s a Q&A for working through this in the chapter on “The Fundamentals of Worry.”
Another favorite find is this: The best approach to reducing worry’s effect in your life is to start with what you need, not what you “should be doing.” Trying to cope with and reduce the stress of worry should not in itself be another cause of yet more worry! Be kind to yourself as you work through your stress and try to get a handle on your coping responses.
Check out more insights from Karol’s book at the Worried Sick Facebook page. Or order it from Karol Ward’s website.
Books-n-Baskets 