Book Review: The Art of Meaningful Living by Christopher F. Brown

The Art of Meaningful Living by Christopher F. Brown

I find something new to think about each time I open this book...

"Happiness is not a destination; it is an experience you will have on the way there." (p. 21)

"You experience the learning curve each time you try something new. It's a process, like change, of varied duration." (p. 48)

"Significant discrepancy between what is meaningful to you and how you spend your time is a warning sign of quiet desperation."(p. 67)

The self-help book of 113 pages is divided into four sections: Wisdom, Action, Relisience, and The Art of Meaningful Lives, with advice and psychological insight into making lives happier and more fulfilled.

From the publisher's description:

Too often our meaningful lives and the things we are passionate about get buried under disappointments and lost dreams. Christopher F. Brown, LCSW, MBA, offers a powerful book combining psychological concepts with beautiful provocative artwork by John Palmer...."

Brown says, "With The Art of Meaningful Living, I provide tools that will help readers learn to manage their minds, cope with the world around them, define what is valuable to them and hopefully move toward the lives they truly want. Remember that change is a journey, not a single event.” www.theartofmeaningfulliving.com

Wish I could also show the colorful artwork that is on every page of this beautiful coffeetable book.

Review copy provided by publicists Phenix & Phenix.

Book Review: Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller by Timothy Hallinan


"Behind every great fortune is a great crime..." is the premise for Timothy Hallinan's latest thriller, Breathing Water.

The book is set in the Bangkok of today and has all the complications of its real life - a shaky political situation, great poverty and great wealth, street children and those who prey on them, corruption, and the pull of love and death. This all makes for a great setting for a thriller, plus an engaging plot that pulls all the complexities of the city together.

From the publisher's description:

For American ex-pat writer Poke Rafferty, a late night poker game delivers an unexpected prize: an "opportunity to write the biography of Khun Pan, a flamboyant, vulgar, self-made billionaire with a criminal past and far-reaching political ambitions. The win seems like a stroke of luck, but as with so many things in vibrant, seductive, contradictory Bangkok - a city of innocence and evil, power and poverty - the allure of appearances masks something much darker.

Within a few hours of folding his cards, Rafferty, his wife, Rose, beloved adopted daughter, Miaow, and best friend, Arthit, an honest Bangkok cop, have become pawns in a political struggle among some of Thailand's richest, most powerful, and most ruthless people.

A great book for mystery/thriller readers.

Book Review: Friends Like These by Danny Wallace

Title: Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play by Danny Wallace
Genre: nonfiction, memoir

Those who watch a lot of the BBC will probably like BBC documentary host and author of Yes Man, Danny Wallace, who describes his summer of searching for 12 school friends listed in the little black address book he had as a kid.

The rest of us who don't know much about him may find the quest less exciting, though Wallace travels from London to Berlin to Australia, to California, and finally to Tokyo to find his school friends. Most of the pals, however, he finds in the good old U.K.

This is nonfiction and his friends are regular, normal guys, not as funny as Jim Carrey in Yes Man.

Hachette Books provided a review copy of this book.

Sunday Salon, Nov. 1

Avocado milk shake and beef noodle soup in Toronto, Canada just before Oct. 31 ended. Spent the rest of the night planning to buy four tickets for the Canadian $50million lottery and planning how to split and spend our winnings, among seven of us. This conversation was fueled by glasses of Bailey's Irish Cream and sweet wine.

Before heading for Toronto on All Hallow's Eve, I had finished three book reviews for the week:

Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin
A Sportscaster's Guide to Watching Football by Mark Oristano
Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin, a new sequel to the Nanny Diaries which will be out Dec. 15.

And also an interview with mystery writer, Susan Arnout Smith, who discussed why she writes mysteries/thrillers such as her latest, Out At Night.

Books have come in from Hachette and other sources, so my TBR pile has been mounting again after I thought I had really whittled it down some.

Am now reading a library book, Breathing Water, a thriller set in Bangkok, Thailand, which is quite good and will be keeping my attention on the long ride back to the States from Canada.

Now, off for dim sum breakfast at a Chinese restaurant. I love to start a new week this way.
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Halloween Reads

Halloween Murder by Shelley Freydont



A really good mystery book for Halloween!

Here are some other Halloween mysteries to ponder:
A Catered Halloween (Mystery with Recipes) by Isis Crawford
Who Stole Halloween? by Martha Freeman
Witches Bane by Susan Wittig Albert
Death on All Hallowe'en by Leo Bruce
Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
Cat with an Emerald Eye by Carole Nelson Douglas
Trick or Treat by Leslie Glaister
Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood
Poisoned Tarts by G.A. McEvett
Trick or Treat Murder by Leslie Meier
Dance of the Scarecrows by Ray Sipherd
The Scarecrow Murders by Mary Welk
All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams
All Hallow's Evil by Valerie Wolzien

Book Review: Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin

Nanny Returns: A Novel by Emma McLaughlin


If you read the Nanny Diaries and liked it, Nanny's back in Nanny Returns, to be released Dec. 15, 2009! My comment - excellent plot, very witty nanny.

I learned East Coast talk and New-Yorkese and marveled at the first names chosen by the author for the wealthy - Stilton, Grayer, Citrine! Do the names have hidden meanings?

Nan, who babysat for the rich and famous when she was a college student, is called back into service by a teenager whom she nannied 12 years earlier. Grayer wants help with his younger brother Stilton as his parents can't be relied on, for one reason or another.

On top of that Nan lands a job as a consultant at a high priced private school that has spoilt children who post outrageous things on the web for all to see.

Super Nan to the rescue, it seems, but Nan's husband Ryan wants to start a family, and right away, despite her job and commitments. Nan doesn't know if she wants children at all. Maybe she's had enough?

I enjoyed the plot, the wicked portrayal of the spoilt young and the wayward adults in wealthy Manhattan. I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars. Haven't read the Nanny Diaries, but I'm now curious!

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC of this book. Title to be released by Atria on Dec. 15, 2009.

Book Review: A Sportscaster's Guide to Watching Football

Don't watch the ball while the center is snapping it back to the quarterback; watch the linemen. Whether they stand up or hunch over is crucial to predict how the play will be made.

That's one of the things I learned from A Sportscaster's Guide to Watching Football. I also have a chart of the line up in the offense and defense positions and information on what each player does - the WR, LT, LG, C, RG, TE, QB, and RB. And don't worry - the book explains what all those initials mean.

Offense, defense, the referees and the rules, what the numbers on the football jerseys mean re their position on the team - the 146 page book covers it all. However, though Mark Oristano did a good job of "Decoding America's Favorite Game," he could not get away completely from using terms/words to explain the same terms/words, which only football fans know. For instance, in the glossary, description of a "punt" is "When it's fourth down and you're too far away to kick a field goal, you punt the ball back to the other guys." Okay, but what is a punt? Sounds silly, but hey, I'm no sports fan.

I did get the basics of the game from the book, though true football fans may enjoy it best. After all, I saw football as a game with guys moving down the football field, running and piling up on top of each other. Now, though, I know better.

A Sportscaster's Guide to Watching Football: Decoding America's Favorite Game by Mark Oristano

Thanks to Phenix & Phenix for a review copy of this book.