Book Review: Call Your Daughter Home: A Novel

 

Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Before a cruise I thought I was getting a book by a different author, but once I started this book my OCD kicked in and I had to finish it. This follows several southern women in the 1920s and how they deal with family and cultural dynamics. So much dysfunction and one storyline of sickening perversion made this a difficult read. It is so far removed from my life experiences and demonstrates how the Gospel changes people and families. That storyline alone tells me not to recommend this book to my friends.

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Book Review: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

 

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book fit in my bag to read on a cruise as I wanted an easy fiction read purely for enjoyment. This really wasn't that for me, but since I didn't have access to another book on the boat and since I have to finish what I start I completed it. It was a bit hard to follow as there was a fantasy element that I just didn't get into.

I didn't really enjoy A Man Called Ove by this author although it was highly recommended by quite a few friends so I'm not sure why I thought I'd like this book, but what can I say? It was $1 at an estate sale  

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Book Review: An Invisible Thread

 

An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An Invisible Thread is a can't put down book. It took only two days to read while I was on vacation. I don't know who recommended it or where I read about it, but I'm thankful someone or I did.
The thread is a reference to a Chinese proverb that people are connected with an invisible thread so they will inevitably meet and be tied together. My faith says that isn't by chance--it's God's plan. this is very much in the same vane as Same Kind of Different as Me but without reference to God or a faith foundation.
Would I have done what Laura did? I don't know. I know I'm not always responsive to panhandlers, but what if a child asked me for money?
Obviously this statement near the end resonated with me to identify with Laura: It's not your lot in life to have children but in fact to affect many.
I recommended this book.

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Book Review: The Truth about Employee Engagement: A Fable about Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery

The Truth about Employee Engagement: A Fable about Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery by Patrick Lencioni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another excellent Patrick Lencioni fable that teaches such great truths. The premise is about employee engagement, but it's really about dealing with people in general. Through the story he teaches the three things that make for a miserable job--immeasurability, irrelevance, and anonymity. Except for measurement, in every day life people want to be relevant and have impact on others as well as be known to others. This is a very helpful and meaningful read since I'm on the Employee Engagement and Experience team at work--definitely sharing with others.

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Book Review: For Such a Time as This

For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House and Beyond by Kayleigh McEnany
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By the time Kayleigh McEnany became Press Sec. for Trump, I was kind of over the MSM and all the false narratives so I admit I really didn't know much about her. I like that a woman of faith was in this position. Her attention to detail and excessive research and preparation for her work is beyond admirable. It seemed she needed a word count and many ideas were repeated even if in slightly different situations. I get it, she had a baby that she constantly referred to as Baby Blake rather than just Blake, her mother either kept Baby Blake in FL or brought her to DC, and Kayleigh hated to leave Baby Blake every time she went to work. I also thought there were too many details about her mammograms, ultrasounds, and dense breast tissue. This is a quick and easy read but as is typical for me, my evenings were choppy to complete it very fast.

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Book Review: Making Numbers Count

 

Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers by Chip Heath
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Excellent reference tool for communicators. Reading it straight through gave me general ideas but it's hard to remember the various strategies when presented with so many. I see going back to this for quick reminders.

If you think you aren't a numbers person, you need to read this to communicate and see relationships of numbers.
If you are a numbers person, you need to read this to make numbers relevant to the common man.

If you like general trivia, this is an interesting read simply to go through the examples which are put into tables and easily noticeable to read.

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Book Review: First Friends

 

First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents by Gary Ginsberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book emphasizes the influences that good friends have on each other. Solomon speaks of iron sharpening iron, and this book shows the iron that sharpened the iron of several Presidents. Who our friends are determine who we are. Another saying is that who we are in 10 years are determined by the books we read and the friends we make.

Dee Brestin in The Friendships of Women described the difference in friendships of women and of men. Men do things with their friends. Women build intimacy with close friends. All of the Presidential friends detailed in this book show that the people are capable of building intimacy--so much so that others wondered if the relationships were tainted. 

When Clinton's transition team was vetting Al Gore, they were sorely concerned that Gore had no intimate friends. “If he can’t develop or even claim one real friendship, how’s he going to lead a nation?”

The author on the importance of friends for a President: "The point here is not to assert that a First Friend is essential to presidential success. It would be a reach—and a misreading of history—to draw that conclusion. And yet the deeper I delved into dozens of presidential friendships, the more convinced I became that those presidents who did have First Friends were almost always the better for it—and so was the country."

I'm very happy that I took Al Mohler's recommendation and encourage you to read this book as well.

And it took me awhile to read this book because work got very busy and my Libby check-out ended and couldn't renew immediately.

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