Book Talk

Perfection

Not perfect? You are running out of excuses. We seem to have a flurry of self-improvement books this month. 

Charles Farrell will eliminate your economic woes with Your Money Ratios: 8 Simple Tools for Financial Security. By looking at savings, debt, investments and insurance, you should be able to see the areas that need improvement. There is a ratio of capital you should have compared to your income to be able to retire! 

If saving 15% doesn’t seem possible, read One Year to an Organized Financial Life. Regina Leeds takes you week by week through different financial tasks. Week one asks readers to examine the way they look at money. What habits did you learn as a child?  A financially unstable childhood probably affects the way you handle money as an adult. By doing your taxes, listing your credit cards, getting a will, and making sure insurance will cover emergencies, a clearer picture of your finances will emerge. 

Money can’t buy you love, but Love & War: Finding the Marriage You’ve Dreamed Of, by John and Stasi Eldredge can help you negotiate those rocky shores. The authors start by acknowledging that marriage is HARD. Two individuals, both with emotional baggage must find common ground to create a successful life. 

Feeling dissatisfied with the direction your life has taken? Try The Make Today Matter Makeover by Brook Noel. For many of us life is in the past or the future, but never now!  Though many of the suggestions seem too simple, they are all about taking control. Too much junk? A bad habit? Procrastination? This step by step approach starts now. 

Susan Krauss Whitbourne use data from a group of people over a forty year span to discover the five basic life paths people follow.  Some are grounded in fear or indecisiveness while others are based on a more active, positive approach. She also shows how you can move to a more meaningful path in The Search for Fulfillment: Revolutionary New Research that Reveals the Secret to Long-term Happiness. 

Drive: the Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink, examines the forces that inspire us to DO. Surprisingly, it is not externals like money or approval. Motivation comes from the human need to direct our own lives. The three elements comprising motivation can be harnessed by businesses and individuals to create more meaningful experiences. 

Fiction 

In Breaking out of Bedlam by Leslie Larson, we have an 82 year-old who KNOWS how to take control of her own life. When her children decide she is not taking proper care of herself, Cora Sledge is consigned to The Palisades, an assisted living facility. Truth is the best revenge and Cora begins to write a tell-all that reveals a secret she has guarded her whole life. Cora refuses to go gently! 

Mickey Ryser, with only a few weeks to live, asks old friend Zack Chasteen to find his estranged daughter. When last seen, Jen had bought a sailboat and was headed for the Bahamas. A private detective hired to find her has gone missing, and an old friend inexplicably jumped ship. And then there’s those pirates… Read Baja Florida by Bob Morris. 

During the Great Depression thousands were on the road searching, but only Marcus Connelly was searching for the man who had murdered his daughter. No one knows the killer, but everyone knows his name…Mr. Shivers. Robert Jackson Bennett sets his tale against one of the darkest and most desperate periods in American history. 

The life of the infamous Dr. Hawley Crippen is reexamined in the novel Dancing for the Hangman by Martin Edwards. Imprisoned for the murder of his wife, Crippen travels through his memories to reach his confession “I am not a murderer.” 

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian