Daddy Dates: Four Daughters, One Clueless Dad, and His Quest to Win Their Hearts: The Road Map for Any Dad to Raise a Strong and Confident Daughter
By Greg Wright
ISBN-10: 1595553207
ISBN-13: 978-1595553201
Daddy Dates is a helpful book that helps any father out there to pause from their day to day activities and take some time to focus on one of the really important things in life: family. The author, a father of four daughters, focuses the book on how to best build a great relationship between father and daughter in the hopes of raising a daughter who will grow up to be the kind of adult that every parent hopes their child will grow to be. So the premise of the book is on how to build that relationship.
The authors goes into detail and provides some good examples on how to build those relationships between father and daughter. He talks about the need for trust, and that in order for trust to be built, a father needs to spend time individually with a daughter, talk with them on a regular basis (on meaningful conversations), and do activities with them that they value and are important/meaningful to them. It's the building of this relationship, combined with rules or boundaries, that fosters the connection between a father and daughter. And it's this strong relationship/connection that will encourage and foster those daughters to be what all good father's what them to be: from finding a mate to career path to what they will ultimately value in life.
It's a good read for any parent of a daughter or daughters who is concerned or questions if they are doing the right thing or doing things right when trying to raise their daughter(s).
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Strike it Rich with Pocket Change
Strike it Rich with Pocket Change
by Kenn Potter and Dr. Brian Allen
ISBN-13: 978-0896894426
Having never read a book of the numismatic variety, this book was a noticeable diversion from the books I typically read. But I found it to be a great first book to pick up for someone who doesn't really know anything about coin collecting, trading or selling.
The book gave a great overview, including many pictures, of various coin errors, what to look for, how to identify them, and what they may be worth. It also included a information on a number of websites to visit, how to sell coins, organizations you can join if you want to get into coin collecting, and a variety of other publications that are avialable for the coin enthusiast.
For anyone who is already pretty familiar with the topic, or is an avid coin collector, this book may not be that beneficial, as numismatists most likely already know a lot of this information. But for a beginner or just the curious, it's a great first book to pick up on the topic.
by Kenn Potter and Dr. Brian Allen
ISBN-13: 978-0896894426
Having never read a book of the numismatic variety, this book was a noticeable diversion from the books I typically read. But I found it to be a great first book to pick up for someone who doesn't really know anything about coin collecting, trading or selling.
The book gave a great overview, including many pictures, of various coin errors, what to look for, how to identify them, and what they may be worth. It also included a information on a number of websites to visit, how to sell coins, organizations you can join if you want to get into coin collecting, and a variety of other publications that are avialable for the coin enthusiast.
For anyone who is already pretty familiar with the topic, or is an avid coin collector, this book may not be that beneficial, as numismatists most likely already know a lot of this information. But for a beginner or just the curious, it's a great first book to pick up on the topic.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Eat Your Peas, Daughter
Eat Your Peas, Daughter
A Little Wisdom and a Lasting Promise
By Cheryl Karpen
ISBN-13: 978-0971179486
Eat Your Peas Daughter is a very short text aimed to tug at the heartstrings and add strength to the mother/daughter relationship. The book is composed of a series of short sayings (1-2 sentences) on every other page of the book, resulting in a book that you can easily read in about 5 minutes. The sayings themselves are more reminiscent of modern day tweets, which would not be a bad use of the books contents.
It's easy to see when a mother may want to give this book to her daughter: graduation, going off to college, moving away, moving to get that first job in the real world. My issue with the book is where those books typically end up. If you're like me you've probably received a few books like these at graduations yourself. But where are these books now, and how often do you read them. I suspect that it gets read once if at all, and then spends the rest of it's life on a shelf collecting dust until it's finally given a local used bookstore, Goodwill, etc.
At a cover price of $9.95, your not exactly getting a bang for your buck for a 72-page book that primarily writes on every other page. Though you may be able to derive that value from a sentimental standpoint in your mother/daughter relationship, you should just know what your getting before purchasing it.
A Little Wisdom and a Lasting Promise
By Cheryl Karpen
ISBN-13: 978-0971179486
Eat Your Peas Daughter is a very short text aimed to tug at the heartstrings and add strength to the mother/daughter relationship. The book is composed of a series of short sayings (1-2 sentences) on every other page of the book, resulting in a book that you can easily read in about 5 minutes. The sayings themselves are more reminiscent of modern day tweets, which would not be a bad use of the books contents.
It's easy to see when a mother may want to give this book to her daughter: graduation, going off to college, moving away, moving to get that first job in the real world. My issue with the book is where those books typically end up. If you're like me you've probably received a few books like these at graduations yourself. But where are these books now, and how often do you read them. I suspect that it gets read once if at all, and then spends the rest of it's life on a shelf collecting dust until it's finally given a local used bookstore, Goodwill, etc.
At a cover price of $9.95, your not exactly getting a bang for your buck for a 72-page book that primarily writes on every other page. Though you may be able to derive that value from a sentimental standpoint in your mother/daughter relationship, you should just know what your getting before purchasing it.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Your Money God's Way
Your Money God’s Way
By Amie Streater (2010)
ISBN-13: 9781595552327
Your Money God’s Way is a good introductory book for people who have not previously spent much time reading or getting educated on personal finance, but find themselves struggling with their finances and desiring to be in a better financial position.
The book is primarily based on case studies, and is fairly qualitative in nature given the subject of the book. So for readers who are looking for a research based, fact and data filled read, will likely need to look elsewhere. This is a bit disheartening as the author sounds like she has coached many people regarding their financial troubles, and likely has a large amount of raw data on various types of people, financial issues and misconceptions that they have, and what resolutions were most effective. It would have been nice to have seen some of this research done, as it likely could have provided some real insight and added a valuable element to the book that does not exist in many places elsewhere in personal financial literature.
In general, the book appears to be geared toward readers who are encountering personal finance literature for the first time. For example, many of the chapter headings focus on financial misconceptions that people with financial troubles often fall prey to. These may be new and interesting ideas to a first-time personal finance reader, however readers already versed on the topic will recognize the financial misconceptions as already well-identified financial beliefs that have been coming out of the fields of behavioral finance and behavioral economics over the past couple decades.
As a result, people already knowledgeable regarding personal finance literature, or those who prefer research and data-filled reading, will likely not find the book too engaging.
But if you’re struggling with your finances, and are looking for a first book to read to shed some light on your personal situation, show you that you’re not alone in your financial troubles, and provide an insightful and inspiring read including initial steps to take to get yourself back on the right track, then this is a good book to start with.
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing us Apart
The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing us Apart
By Bill Bishop
ISBN-13: 9780618689264
The premise of Bill Bishop’s book is that the United States, through the formation of small, homogenous units, is being torn apart, as the book’s subtitle informs us. So, naturally, the author focuses on describing and giving examples of how the nation is more clustered now than it has been in recent decades. And while the scope as described is broad, the actual contents of the book were found surprisingly to be substantially more narrowly-focused.
For anyone interested in how this clustering applies to political science, this book is for you. The author spends the majority of the book describing the Big Sort from a political perspective, with plenty of examples based on data gathered and analyzed by well-known and admired statistician Robert Cushing. However, once you move beyond the discussion of the Big Sort in reference to political science, the book falls short.
There is some discussion of the Sort in relation to religion, which is interesting. But beyond that, the references to the Sort from perspectives such as wealth/income, ideas, education, race, etc. were considerably lacking. They were mentioned and discussed briefly (to give credit where credit is due) but the pages allocated to them pale in comparison to the allocation give to politics. The book reads almost as though it was initially written solely from a political perspective, and the addition of non-political justifications for his Sort theory was more of an afterthought.
In addition, near the end of the book, Bishop mentions that we have been sorted, or polarized, before and that these divisions have been temporary and ultimately resolved. However, he spends almost no time discussing the history past sorts and how they arose, what they were like, or how they dissipated. Nor does he spend much time considering the implications of the current sort or expectations of how or when it will resolve itself. I found myself waiting for this at the conclusion of the book, but instead the final chapter was reserved for further examples of political sorting from the 2008 election data (as if there wasn’t enough of that in the preceding chapters of the book)
Overall, I found the book lacking, and as a result unconvincing as to why the reader should care about any polarization we are undergoing as a country. Our cultural waxes and wanes along the spectrum of a variety of societal norms, seemingly and simply enough just due to human nature. I can’t help but think that if the book were written by someone with more a scientific background (such as in anthropology or sociology) or by an author like a Jared Diamond, rather than a pure journalist, that we may have found ourselves reading a more insightful and engaging book.
By Bill Bishop
ISBN-13: 9780618689264
The premise of Bill Bishop’s book is that the United States, through the formation of small, homogenous units, is being torn apart, as the book’s subtitle informs us. So, naturally, the author focuses on describing and giving examples of how the nation is more clustered now than it has been in recent decades. And while the scope as described is broad, the actual contents of the book were found surprisingly to be substantially more narrowly-focused.
For anyone interested in how this clustering applies to political science, this book is for you. The author spends the majority of the book describing the Big Sort from a political perspective, with plenty of examples based on data gathered and analyzed by well-known and admired statistician Robert Cushing. However, once you move beyond the discussion of the Big Sort in reference to political science, the book falls short.
There is some discussion of the Sort in relation to religion, which is interesting. But beyond that, the references to the Sort from perspectives such as wealth/income, ideas, education, race, etc. were considerably lacking. They were mentioned and discussed briefly (to give credit where credit is due) but the pages allocated to them pale in comparison to the allocation give to politics. The book reads almost as though it was initially written solely from a political perspective, and the addition of non-political justifications for his Sort theory was more of an afterthought.
In addition, near the end of the book, Bishop mentions that we have been sorted, or polarized, before and that these divisions have been temporary and ultimately resolved. However, he spends almost no time discussing the history past sorts and how they arose, what they were like, or how they dissipated. Nor does he spend much time considering the implications of the current sort or expectations of how or when it will resolve itself. I found myself waiting for this at the conclusion of the book, but instead the final chapter was reserved for further examples of political sorting from the 2008 election data (as if there wasn’t enough of that in the preceding chapters of the book)
Overall, I found the book lacking, and as a result unconvincing as to why the reader should care about any polarization we are undergoing as a country. Our cultural waxes and wanes along the spectrum of a variety of societal norms, seemingly and simply enough just due to human nature. I can’t help but think that if the book were written by someone with more a scientific background (such as in anthropology or sociology) or by an author like a Jared Diamond, rather than a pure journalist, that we may have found ourselves reading a more insightful and engaging book.
Friday, September 10, 2010
ADKAR: a model for change in business, government and our community
ADKAR: a model for change in business, government and our community
By Jeffrey M. Hiatt
ISBN-10: 1930885512
ISBN-13: 9781930885516
ADKAR is a widely applicable work for anyone who has to deal with change. Regardless of whether you work at a private business, not-for-profit, or government entity, all of us are affected by changes that go on in the workplace, and this book introduces an insightful perspective to change and how change can be better addressed. And, fortunately for the reader, ADKAR was written by a pioneer in the field of change management, and the preeminent figure in the world of ADKAR methodology.
The scope of the book, as the title suggests, focuses solely on the ADKAR model. It doesn’t so much as mention competing theories of change management (i.e. person-centered implementation, unfreeze-change-refreeze, etc.). So if you’re looking for a broader introduction to change management itself, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
If, on the other hand you’re interested in reading on any methodology within the field of change management, or are specifically seeking out information on ADKAR, this is the book to start with. The author provides a very brief (3-page) introduction to ADKAR, which may be too brief for readers who encounter this book as their first exposure to the topic. He then jumps right in and spends the first third of the book explaining each of the elements of the model, followed by the remainder of the book on how to create/deliver/realize the methodology in practice.
Each element of the model is explained quite well, including examples of organizations which have successfully and unsuccessfully addressed change, the factors that affect the element, roles involved, and tactics to remediate the negative factors involved in a change. The author makes no assumptions concerning the reader’s knowledge of the topic as he walks through the model, but includes insightful nuggets that even those already familiar with ADKAR will find informative.
Upon closing the book, I found myself wanting to know more about the details of ADKAR and how it can be implemented, and it would certainly have been possible for the author to include more, as the book is only 150 pages long. However, I believe the author made the right choice in limiting the length of the book, as expounding too much would have likely made the book too dry and less interesting. Overall, I found this book to be a wonderful introduction to ADKAR, and feel like I walked away from it knowing vastly more about change than I did when I set out to read it.
By Jeffrey M. Hiatt
ISBN-10: 1930885512
ISBN-13: 9781930885516
ADKAR is a widely applicable work for anyone who has to deal with change. Regardless of whether you work at a private business, not-for-profit, or government entity, all of us are affected by changes that go on in the workplace, and this book introduces an insightful perspective to change and how change can be better addressed. And, fortunately for the reader, ADKAR was written by a pioneer in the field of change management, and the preeminent figure in the world of ADKAR methodology.
The scope of the book, as the title suggests, focuses solely on the ADKAR model. It doesn’t so much as mention competing theories of change management (i.e. person-centered implementation, unfreeze-change-refreeze, etc.). So if you’re looking for a broader introduction to change management itself, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
If, on the other hand you’re interested in reading on any methodology within the field of change management, or are specifically seeking out information on ADKAR, this is the book to start with. The author provides a very brief (3-page) introduction to ADKAR, which may be too brief for readers who encounter this book as their first exposure to the topic. He then jumps right in and spends the first third of the book explaining each of the elements of the model, followed by the remainder of the book on how to create/deliver/realize the methodology in practice.
Each element of the model is explained quite well, including examples of organizations which have successfully and unsuccessfully addressed change, the factors that affect the element, roles involved, and tactics to remediate the negative factors involved in a change. The author makes no assumptions concerning the reader’s knowledge of the topic as he walks through the model, but includes insightful nuggets that even those already familiar with ADKAR will find informative.
Upon closing the book, I found myself wanting to know more about the details of ADKAR and how it can be implemented, and it would certainly have been possible for the author to include more, as the book is only 150 pages long. However, I believe the author made the right choice in limiting the length of the book, as expounding too much would have likely made the book too dry and less interesting. Overall, I found this book to be a wonderful introduction to ADKAR, and feel like I walked away from it knowing vastly more about change than I did when I set out to read it.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The Gospel of Wealth -- by Andrew Carnegie
The Gospel of Wealth is a quick (it’s only 50 pages) and easy read, especially considering it was written a century ago. And while some may view a book this old to be too outdated to be worthwhile, in this case I found this one to contain many ideas that hold just as true today as they did 100 years ago. The book does not offer much by way of research-based facts, but in this case that is likely a plus as any such information would almost certainly be outdated today. Instead, the author primarily focuses on giving advice to the masses on the relationship between wealth and poverty and how we as individuals and a society live in regards to these matters.
While some may question the author’s authority on the matter, I found his extensive knowledge and experience in business and philanthropy to be quite sufficient for the writing he offers. Overall, I found the book to be full of nuggets of truth that transcend time in a way that allows them to be as pertinent today (if not more so) as they were when the book was written. And as someone who has read several additional and more modern books on the subject of philanthropy/charity/giving, I have found many the ideas the author proffers in the book to be routinely reinforced and expounded upon in the current literature.
While some may question the author’s authority on the matter, I found his extensive knowledge and experience in business and philanthropy to be quite sufficient for the writing he offers. Overall, I found the book to be full of nuggets of truth that transcend time in a way that allows them to be as pertinent today (if not more so) as they were when the book was written. And as someone who has read several additional and more modern books on the subject of philanthropy/charity/giving, I have found many the ideas the author proffers in the book to be routinely reinforced and expounded upon in the current literature.
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