Book Reviews April

I am continuing to take all your recommendations with me to the library each time I go. So I’m working through them if they are available…if not, well I rarely purchase books so I’ll be holding out for someone to send it as a gift! As always I’m still on GoodReads if you need any other book ideas.

For Fun
the penny pinchers club by Sarah Strohmeyer
This was a totally silly book and probably exactly what I needed to let me de-stress from my work days. Not surprisingly it follows a shopaholic woman through the process of learning she needs to stop spending so much money…but why? Because she thinks she needs to save up for a divorce…ah ha so the romantic elements are all there to see who she chooses and why and of course how the heck does she stop shopping like it’s her job.

South of Broad by Pat Conroy (author of The Prince of Tides)
This book was one of the most intriguing that I have read in a very long time. It’s a long book, but the character development is wonderful, exciting and ever changing. This story follows a group of unlikely friends that emerge in high school through their bonds with one young kid who for all purposes appears at the time to be quite a loser. Their bonds are maintained through their adult lives and take you through a number of unexpected turns keeping the story exciting and the message of friendship alive and strong. I definitely wanted to pick up the phone and call someone every time I read this book.

For Spirit
Ok the three books I had for spirit this time were audio books that I listened to while running…. I didn’t think either was very good, so I’m not going to waste your time on a review.

For Running
The End of Overeating by David Kessler
AMAZING. The actual details about how you can stop overeating are very sparse, but the scientific information in this book about how companies develop all those crazy foods was FASCINATING. Sugar, Fat and Salt and they all admitted that the bigger combination of those they could create the more people would come back or the more people would overeat…it’s intentional! I was reading this at the beach and kept looking at Samara going did you know “They intentionally developed that smell for Cinnabon in malls?!” Did you know that highly processed foods are made that way because we can wolf them down faster, yup no chewing required! It certainly made me slightly afraid to ever eat out again knowing that most restaurant food is going to wreck havoc on my future food choices. The main points that I think I got from how to stop:
1. Make the choice before you see the food. Not should I have the cookie, but No I will not have a cookie.
2. Set a standard set of times that you eat and condition yourself not to eat at other times.
3. Create new rules for yourself…yeah these were all like 2 page sections in a much larger book.

In A Single Bound by Sarah Reinersten
After reading Josh Lundquists book, I figured this too would inspire me….ehh not so much. Sorry Sarah, but the read just wasn’t that interesting. There was more in here about her time on the show the Amazing Race than details that would inspire me to go out and work my butt off to become a better athlete. Don’t get me wrong, she clearly worked very hard and she is amazing, but something about the tone of the book just didn’t convey that inspiration that I was so hoping to find in it’s pages.

A lot of you put reading on your 3 challenges list…how is it going??
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Gratitude Journal
April 29
I am grateful for free books
I am grateful for library cards
I am grateful for online library catalogs
I am grateful for downloadable audio books
I am grateful for book recommendations