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Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia just didn’t do it for me. The title is probably the best thing about the book, but I guess that’s why you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s title (or featured destinations). I really tried to be interested in this book, but [...]

The Glass Castle is an emotional, but exceptional book. Yes, many families have their own Rex Walls, and the accuracy of the author’s childhood memories could be questioned, but that really wasn’t the point of the book for me. This memoir is about family and acceptance. While I can’t claim to have had such [...]

Knocking out a classic this week. Shocking as it sounds, I had never read Orwell’s Animal Farm. I liked it. It was short and full of intended symbolism and political “humor.” Yes, it belongs on the classic list.
Animal Farm (Signet Classics)

You either love or hate GTD (Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity). Although the Allen-ite way of productivity seems to have lost it’s best-seller momentum, it’s still a decent way to get things accomplished. So I decided a re-read was in order. I hadn’t read this book in a few years, so it [...]

I have mixed reviews about The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. First, it’s an excellent reminder of how short life is and that we should pursue what makes us “happy”, not stay in dead-end jobs etc. However, I really dislike the idea of “outsourcing” your life and producing or [...]

I had the most deja-vu feeling while reading this book. Anyway, Speaking with the Angelis kind of a sampler of 12 authors all around the same genre (Fielding, Bank, Hornby) and edited by Nick Hornby. Each story is set in first person, so it runs along the same theme, but I really wasn’t as impressed [...]

I have been warned about week 5… looks like I’ll be spending some time organizing my files.
Week 5 - Getting Into the Thick of It
Clean office area
Vacuum, dust, mop
Declutter files
Tackle the cord octopus
Try a one-day media fast
Buy fresh flowers
Choose at least 1 soft/hard thing to add or subtract
Cook 3 [...]

If only Peter Mayle would move to more countries and regions and then document his journey. I love reading these books! If you’ve been to the area he’s talking about, it makes you giggle; and if you haven’t then it just makes you want to go there. Organized in no particular order, the chapters are [...]

Now the real work starts… week 4 is the declutter deep treatment, so it looks like I’ll be spending some time sorting through my books/media. I think the hardest part of this week will be deciding what colors and items to +/- in each room. It’s so ambiguous.
Week 4 - Retail Therapy (& Declutter)
Clean [...]

I like how this book is divided into alphabetized 1 page blurbs (otherwise known as riffs, rants and ideas). While all 183 are not remarkable it, it’s a great read/listen. I first checked this book out from the library and after skipping around, reading a few pages, I checked out the audio book. I think [...]