Book Review | Book Chatter

The Art of Meaningful Living
By Christopher F. Brown
Art by John Palmer
Synergy Books
September 2009
128pp

The blurb from the publisher:

Too often our meaningful lives and the things we are passionate about are buried under disappointments and lost dreams.

Christopher F. Brown, LCSW, MBA, offers a powerful book combining psychological concepts with beautiful, provocative artwork done by John Palmer to help us move beyond the pain in our present lives to something more valuable and joyful. Divided into four stages, Brown has put together this thought-provoking guide to transform a life filled with dissatisfaction to a life filled with true meaning. Open to any page and begin your own journey toward a meaningful life.

The Short of It:

The Art of Meaningful Living walks us through the various stages of what it takes to live a meaningful life. Filled with artwork to emphasize each stage, this book is both refreshing and different.

The Rest of It:

This is a really interesting book. I’m at a point in my life where the everyday routine gets to me. Normally having a routine is very soothing but of late, my routine has been running me into the ground a bit. I think that is one of the reasons that I have been turning to non-fiction lately and when this book came along, once again it seemed like it was put into my hands for a reason.

The Art of Meaningful Living is an art book of sorts. Each section (Wisdom, Action, Resilience) contains artwork to emphasize its points. Each section contains topics such as:

Understand the Control Problem
Change is a Process, Not an Event
Spend Your Time on Your Passions
Make Effective Decisions

It’s not just an art book though. Each section addresses things that we experience each day of our lives and with each section being only 1-2 pages long, I find them very readable and it doesn’t matter which order you read them in. You can read the book from the beginning, or you can jump to a topic of particular interest. I jumped right to the section on Control because I have issues with control. Here is a quote from that section:

Focusing your energy on things you cannot control or influence leads to ineffectiveness, disappointment and frustration.

I think that it’s important to mention here that I am not big on self-help books but to me, this one doesn’t really fall into that category. It’s beautifully done. The artwork is stunning and it doesn’t feel like a self-help book. It’s not preachy, just very inspirational.

If you’d like to read more about the book and Christopher F. Brown, click here to visit his website.

Source: Thanks to Phenix and Phenix Literary Publicists for sending me this review copy.

A Sportscaster’s Guide to Watching Football
By Mark Oristano
Synergy Books
August 2009
160pp

Here is the blurb from the publisher:

Want to know what everyone is cheering about? Learn to enjoy and understand the game with the football fanatic in your life. This book is the ultimate football guide for the novice fan. You’ll get answers to such complex questions as:

What is that yellow line on the field, and why does it keep moving?
What down is it, and why do I care?
What is a T Formation?
Whats the difference between a running back and a tight end?
What are Special Teams, and what makes them special?

Laced with hilarious and insightful anecdotes from Mark Oristano’s career as a pro football sportscaster, A Sportscasters Guide to Watching Football will turn you into a football-watching pro, or at least let you fake it.

The Short of It:

Short, yet packed with useful information. This is the guide for those that want to know more about the game yet don’t have a lot of time in front of the TV to figure it all out.

The Rest of It:

When I was asked to review this book I jumped at the chance. Sometimes books just end up in your hands at the right time, you know? The Hub has always been incredibly frustrated by my lack of knowledge in the area of football. When I watch football, I comment on the outfits (uniforms) and during the Superbowl, I choose a team to root for simply by asking who the underdog is. I always root for the underdog. This lack of information began in my high school days. I was on pep squad and during all the games I ran from one end of the field to the other with absolutely no idea what the heck I was doing or why. I just followed the others but felt incredibly silly at times.

However, those days are over! Well, not quite over but after reading A Sportscaster’s Guide to Watching Football, I feel as if I can at least follow the game now. Mark Oristano spent 30 years as a professional sports broadcaster so he certainly knows the game, but what impressed me with this book is that he tells me what I need to know in layman’s terms yet provides all of the vocabulary necessary to talk like pro.

The book is peppered with tips. Here’s an example:

If you’ve been watching football, you’ve probably been watching the football. I’m going to give you an order here: DON’T WATCH THE BALL. I know it sounds odd, since the ball is the whole point of the game, but the ball doesn’t tell you what’s going on.

So true.

The book is also peppered with sections titled Cool Things to Say During Game:

To really make the point, when the two-minute time-out commercial break is over, as your team comes up to the line of scrimmage, and your QB goes under center, swirl your drink, make that ice noise, and say, “Work the sideline, baby!”

See what I mean? Useful stuff. Since I knew nothing about the game, any info is really better than none, so feedback from me may not be that useful in determining if this is the book for you, so I had The Hub read it. You’ll be happy to know that he gave it his seal of approval!

With it being so easy to read and it being so short, I think a lot of folks might enjoy this and it would make a great stocking stuffer.

Source: Thanks to Phenix and Phenix Literary Publicists for sending me this review copy.

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