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Reviewer's Choice
Clever Girl Millionaire
Bola Sukanbi
Wiley
https://www.wiley.com/en-us
9781394313648, $29.87 Audio/$24.95 Paperback/$16.87 Audio/$15.00 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Clever-Girl-Millionaire-Build-Wealth/dp/1394313640
"Clever Girl Millionaire: A Guide to Redefining What's Possible, Turning Ambitions into Actions, and Dreams into Millions" is not your usual get-rich guide. It comes not from a business coach, but from a self-made Black woman millionaire who founded Clever Girl Finance, one of the largest personal finance media/education platforms for women in the US. Bola Sukanbi wields not theory, but tested business strategies as she advises not just on business approaches that lead to success, but mindsets and attitudes that help accumulate wealth.
The chapters comprising "Clever Girl Millionaire" apply financial principles to real-world scenarios, showing readers exactly how embracing a short but essential list of financial basics can lead to not just earning income, but managing and growing it more successfully. They also are designed to serve as workbooks, reviewing actionable steps, thoughtful prompts, and practical exercises to help readers apply what they are learning here to their lives. Of course, this request a special kind of reader devoted to not just absorbing information, but reflecting it via actions and revised choices.
Sukanbi also emphasizes the bigger picture beyond wealth and business acuity:
"What's the point of working so hard to pay off debt, budget, save, and invest, if you're not giving yourself permission to enjoy what you're building? Life is meant to be experienced. You don't want to get to your goal, look around, and realize you missed all the moments that made the journey meaningful because you were too focused on the destination."
This emphasizes the rationale behind reading this book and absorbing its values and advise in the first place - something missing from too many focuses on wealth strategies - and keeps the focus on attitude and the consequences of choice:
"Debt isn't just about numbers. It affects your mindset, your stress levels, and your ability to move freely with your money. When you're constantly making payments toward high-interest debt (hello, credit cards), that's money that's not being used to invest, build, or grow. In other words, it slows you down."
The result stands head and shoulders above most books about wealth and business, offering readers a unified theory of tested, world-wise approaches to life and living better that will especially please readers concerned about cultivating not only money, but resilience and winning, uplifting life approaches.
Libraries and readers that pick Clever Girl Millionaire over others will also find its lively tone, concrete approaches, and especially its encouraging, warm advice to women in particular will make the book a winning discussion topic among book clubs and reading groups of all kinds, including women's groups and those devoted to money and life savvy.
The Cookbook Shelf
French Country Cooking
Trish Deseine
Kyle Books
c/o Octopus Books
https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk
9781804194331, $39.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/French-Country-Cooking-Recipes-Settings/dp/1804194336
French Country Cooking: Recipes & Table Settings For All Seasons offers nearly a hundred recipes that are seasonal, stem from French country influences, and come packed with classic French flair, from Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic to Apple Sorbet made with apples, lemon, apricot jam, and Calvados liquor. Cooks who associate French cuisine with complicated fare will be delighted to realize that many of these dishes can be quickly assembled, such as Neck of Lamb with Carrots and Red Wine, or Hazelnut Cake. A wealth of color photos makes this cookbook as visually appealing as its recipes.
Hamlyn
c/o Octopus Books
https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk
New cookbooks from Hamlyn feature attractive formats and recipes that will attract interest from a wide audience of cooks.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Broke-Vegan-plant-based-recipes-earth/dp/0600640175
Saskia Sidey's Broke Vegan: Over 100 Plant-Based Recipes That Don't Cost the Earth (9780600640172 $14.99) acknowledges that specialty ingredients aren't needed in order to cook effective, affordable, delicious vegan food. Full-page color facing photos accompany many recipes, which include such attractions as Loaded Potatoes with Smoky Spicy Beans; Pimped Instant Ramen with sweetcorn, bok choy, and onions; and Spicy 'Tuna' Watermelon Tostadas. The range of flavors that stem from common supermarket ingredients is impressive. Three 'Recipes For' pocket-sized hardcover cookbooks by Francesca Huntingdon each hold 65 recipes each that are easy to produce, presented in packages that lend to gift-giving. All recipes are made from scratch and will prove especially attractive to new cooks just starting out.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Recipes-Soup-65-nourishing-recipes/dp/0600640124
Recipes for Soups (9780600640127, $12.99) holds a range of soup possibilities, from starters and summer fare to hearty winter soups. From Seafood Gumbo to a Curried Vegetable Soup, each is easy to produce and simply appealing.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Recipes-Summer-65-seasonal-recipes/dp/0600640159
Recipes for Summer (9780600640158, $12.99) is the perfect choice for hot weather and includes dishes such as Mixed Seafood Puff Pies, Spinach, Tomato and Egg Tarts, and Corn on the Cob with Turmeric Butter. These depart from the usual barbecue or cold soup focus to offer a range of possibilities for hot days and long nights.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Recipes-Savoury-Bakes-mouthwatering-recipes/dp/0600640132
Recipes for Savoury Bakes (9780600640134, $12.99) samples the world of baked goods with dishes such as Spinach and Feta Tarts, Roasted Tomato & Onion Puff Pie, or Turmeric & Black Pepper Oatcakes. The range of dishes in each little book is surprising, offering many flavor combinations and possibilities readers won't find under one cover elsewhere, making for excellent cookbooks for home or library acquisition.
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Healthy-Satisfying-Designed-Nutritionist/dp/0600639835
Caroline Hanna's Hungry (9780600639831, $32.99) features nearly a hundred nutritionally balanced recipes for snacks, meals, and treats. It comes from a nutritionist who focuses on eating healthier foods. Hanna has created a wealth of dishes complimented by facing pages of color photos, such as Harissa and Aubergine Beans, High-Protein Creamy Red Pepper Pasta made with cottage cheese, Parmesan, and red pepper and basil and a Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chilli spiced with cinnamon, cumin, pepper, and paprika. The dishes are designed to pair high-value protein boosts with flavor, come from a range of international culinary influences, and represent unique adaptations of ingredients to healthier purposes, making Hungry a treasure trove of delights.
The Fantasy/SciFi Shelf
Penric's Intrigues
Lois McMaster Bujold
Baen Books
www.baen.com
9781668073278, $28.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Penrics-Intrigues-World-Five-Gods/dp/1668073277
Two adventures in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric and Desdemona series provide fantasy fans with a collection that consists of the short novel "The Assassins of Thasalon" and the novella "Knot of Shadows." A new introduction by the author opens the two tales, which revolve around a conflict that draws sorcerer Learned Penric and his Temple demon Desdemona into political strife, and a second story about a undead corpse that brings the two into a strange investigation of quasi-murder. Both tales lace mystery with intrigue in a satisfying juxtaposition of adventures which will please fantasy, supernatural fiction, and mystery readers alike.
The Winds of Fate: Make the Darkness Light
S.M. Stirling
Baen Books
www.baen.com
9781668073384, $18.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Winds-Fate-Make-Darkness-Light/dp/1668073382
The Winds of Fate: Make the Darkness Light takes place years after Artorius journeyed into the past. Here, he and his team discover that the Chinese have sent five time travelers and technology to 165 C.E. to change the past as the Han dynasty fades. This threatens the American team's intentions to change Rome, and the two forces clash in the ancient world with the stakes for control including preventing a nuclear war that would take place centuries earlier than anticipated. Science fiction readers interested in the intersection of time travel, ancient world culture and politics, and alternate history will find The Winds of Fate: Make the Darkness Light thoroughly involving and highly recommended for readers of time travel struggles and alternative history.
The Self-Help Shelf
Do the Hustle
Don Kurz
https://www.DonKurzAuthor.com
Munn Avenue Press
https://munnavenuepress.com
9781969679353, $27.99 Hardcover/$19.99 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Do-Hustle-Championship-Lacrosse-Boardroom/dp/1969679352
Do the Hustle: Life Lessons from Studio 54, the Championship Lacrosse Field, and the Boardroom blends autobiography with philosophical insights on influences that come not from educational institutions or business encounters, but life experiences, from dance floors to career-ending injuries. It opens with an unabashed promise:
Reading this book and following its principles will lead to a happy and fulfilling life.
Don Kurz operated in circles ranging from football and lacrosse to participating in the disco craze, including being a regular at New York's iconic Studio 54 and serving on the boards of elite educational institutions. These multifaceted experiences gave rise to realizations and life lessons that could not have stemmed from a singular approach or interaction. Readers can anticipate lively accounts of these lessons, which stem from all kinds of life encounters. The conclusions Kurtz reaches translates to wisdom often buried in similar-sounding books about growth and life understanding:
"So how do you move on, versus wallowing in I can't freaking believe I put myself in this untenable situation? When the EMAK debacle was finished, I had pissed away what was once tens of millions of dollars. I knew that I could very well never make that type of money again. How did I sleep at night? By keeping the underlying mistake in perspective: it was just a bad decision, underpinned by a very bruised ego. And everyone makes them. And if you don't truly accept and embrace that bad decision, you are destined to a life of misery and bitterness."
The business insights from these life encounters will also appeal to leaders interested in fine-tuning their approach to management, team-building, and the impact of their decisions:
"Do you have the necessary conviction to fire a star performer because they are disruptive to the team? I struggle with this issue like everyone does, because you can't help thinking, Damn, she is really good at her job. But I have nevertheless terminated a number of those people in my career, and I'm proud to have done so. Again, this is what you have to do to make sure the team, and not the individual, is paramount."
Advice ranges from addressing the jealousy of others who view success as a reason for resentment to being involved with community and teams on the path to victory. Do the Hustle's unique blend of wide-ranging life lessons and personal achievement is highly recommended for audiences interested not just in applied life lessons, but their wellsprings of inspiration and adaptation.
From discussions of risk aversion to the costs of staying timid, Kurz provides a blueprint for adaptation, change, and possibility that librarians and readers will find inspirational, thought-provoking, and the perfect fodder for sparking lively book club discussions:
"The lesson here is that you can't risk-manage your way through life. You can avoid making foolish mistakes, like not wearing your seatbelt or smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, to manage your risk. But not all of life's risks can be managed - or even predicted - and by trying to avoid all of them, all the time, you run a different kind of risk - you risk missing life-transforming opportunities."
The Metaphysical Studies Shelf
Find Your Light
Gemma Petherbridge
Godsfield
c/o Octopus Books
https://www.octopusbooks.co.uk
9781841816661, $22.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Find-Your-Light-Embrace-Calling/dp/1841816663
Find Your Light: Awaken Your Soul Power and Embrace Your Calling offers insights about soul missions, "lightworkers," and spiritual matters. It comes from an energy healer and renowned speaker who outlines the process of channeling high-frequency vibrations to shift energy and promote healing. Her review of lightwork and its connection to personal psychological growth and bigger-picture thinking creates powerful survey appropriate for new age and healing libraries and readers. Color illustrations throughout also settle Find Your Light neatly into the "appropriate for gift-giving" category.
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
Midwest Book Review
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