by Anonymous and Imogen Edwards-Jones
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Anonymous, the manager of a five-star hotel, takes us behind the scenes of a luxury hotel in London.
This book is marketed and catalogued as non-fiction, but at about a page into this, I had to flip back to the spine to double-check that it did indeed have a non-fiction call number from the library. This book is written as an imaginary 24 hours in the life of a reservations clerk, and is supposedly based on actual events but fictionalized staff.
I would have preferred to read a real nonfiction book, and not one dressed up as fiction. The book is actually not that bad, but it took me at least halfway through the book before I could forget about how it was supposed to be nonfiction, and just enjoy it.
by Po Bronson
ONE LINE SUMMARY: In a series of chapters, each about a different person, the author explores how people decided what to do with their lives.
This was an interesting book, but it felt like a collection of short essays, rather than being a united whole. I would actually have preferred it to be more like the Barbara Ehrenreich book, Nickel and Dimed with more time spent on fewer subjects (and Nickel and Dimed should have been more like this one: more subjects/jobs covered more quickly).
No conclusion is reached, and the book doesn’t provide much (if anything) in the way of helping you figure out what to do with your life. Instead, all it really shows is that you aren’t alone in feeling like something’s missing from your career.
by Leonard Sax
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Doctor and pyschologist Leonard Sax explores the science behind gender differences.
If you have a kid, or are even thinking about having kids, you need to buy this book right away. Read it. Study it. And keep it, so you can refer back to it as your child grows, because you WILL need it.
This is a fascinating book about the differences in gender and how different parenting and educational techniques need to be employed depending on what sex your child is. Dr. Sax is careful to point out that boys and girls are equally capable of learning (and excelling at) the same things, but that the way in which they best learn these things differ.
And if nothing else, it certainly explains why I always think my husband’s yelling at me when he insists he wasn’t (because females hear better than males).
by Jean Chatzky
ONE LINE SUMMARY: This little book explains how to lower your debt by saving $10 a day.
Admittedly, we don’t really have credit card debt, and we’re probably way ahead of the average American in that. So I didn’t find Chatzky’s slender book to be of much interest, except where she describes what affects your credit score.
The book is a quick enough read, but a better way to help people reduce their debt might have been to sell the book for $9.95 instead of $19.95.
by Barbara Ehrenreich
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Author Ehrenreich attempts to see how people survive in America on minimum wage and little experience.
I enjoyed this book up until the last chapter*, and by “enjoyed,” I mean I was appalled at how difficult it is for some people to survive in America. Ehrenreich had the best possible chance to succeed in this experiment: she brought extra cash to each location to tide her over until she found a job, and presumably rested in between each move at her own house with her family.
That she found it impossible to break even with rent and wages (and without suffering health emergencies or having to deal with child care), is telling.
Why don’t we have more affordable housing?
*I might not have enjoyed the last chapter as much because I was reading it while Chris was watching American Idol in the same room and I was distracted. Also I had a fever at the time and found it hard to concentrate. Plus the last chapter is more factual and a lot less personal than the previous chapters.
by William Bronchick and Robert Dahlstrom
ONE LINE SUMMARY: The authors explain how to buy properties and then sell them rapidly for profit.
Booooooring! This is a dull book that is blessedly short and has more white space in the margins than text on the pages.
This may be a good general introduction to flipping properties, but I’m more interested in the rehabbing process. Apparently flipping can involve not just renovating and reselling, but also merely locating properties (and selling the information) or simply buying a property and reselling it immediately (without renovating it) for a smaller but quicker profit.
by Ken Warren
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Uh, Ken Warren teaches Texas Hold’Em.
This a great beginners’ book for Texas Hold’Em, but I haven’t played in any games yet, so I can’t say whether it’s helpful. Come back after I’ve won a few million, ha ha.
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