About the book: Casey McDaniel had never been so nervous in his life. In just ten minutes, The Meeting, as it would forver be known, would begin. Casey had every reason to believe that his performance over the next two hours would determine the fate of his career, his financial future, and the company he had built from scratch. “How could my life have unraveled so quickly?” he wondered.

My review: Although I am a teacher and not a business person, I lead and attend plenty of meetings. I found this book fascinating. I love the way it was written. The author used story – not just facts and commentary. Throughout the story, Lencioni gives principals for successful meetings and exposes myths – such as you always need an AGENDA. How freeing! The author brings you inside the characters’ heads and causes the reader to relate to common fears and goals. This is a short read – I read it in half a day. It is totally engaging and thought provoking. The story takes up about three-fourths of the book. The last fourth of the book is the model and written as non-fiction.

For anyone who has to attend and/or lead numerous meetings, I recommend this book. My husband recommended it to me and he is not a businessman either, but he is in ministry. The principles cross over to other lifestyles and career choices.

Several years ago, I read the book The Faith of George W. Bush by Stephen Mansfield. I remember feeling quite impressed by the book and feeling as though it gave me insight into a president I didn’t fully understand. Instead of looking at him through the hard edges of politics and public expectation, I felt like I was getting a glimpse of his soul.

Therefore, when the opportunity to review The Faith of Barack Obama by the same author came about, I jumped at the chance immediately. Regardless of where your personal politics lie, the story of Barack Obama is an interesting one, and it stands to reason that even if he doesn’t win the presidency this year, he will remain an influential face in the American political arena for some time to come. Therefore, it is important to understand his faith…a faith that drives him and a faith he is reclaiming for the left.

Stephen Mansfield tells us about Barack Obama’s faith by telling us about his life. The first part of the book is concerned with establishing Obama’s background and explaining some of the things we may have only heard about in bits and pieces on the news. I found these chapters to be beautifully written and impossible not to feel compassion for the young Barack who faced so many different shifts in family in his young life. This background made the section that dealt with his church particularly moving. By now, we all know about the famous Jeremiah Wright and his angry and shocking rhetoric. Many people condemned Obama for standing by his church and then later defecting, so to say. I think the section about this situation was so well handled.

Mansfield also gives brief portraits of faith for Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and George W. Bush. It’s interesting to see the different ways each of these individual’s faiths have guided and affected their politics and public perception.

Mansfield writes with compassion and fairness. He has publicly said he will not support Barack Obama with a vote, but this book in no way demonizes Obama. Instead, it accurately portrays the faith that drives this man and that drives so many of the post-modern Christians today. If you want to understand Barack Obama a little better, and also the many younger Christians that will be supporting him this upcoming election than I highly recommend this book. If you are interested in learning about the soul of a man than I recommend this book. My recommendation is this if you are conservative in your politics and faith….approach this book seeking to understand and not defensively and will you enjoy it and benefit from reading it. I was deeply moved by it.

Buy The Faith of Barack Obama on Amazon.

(Note: This is the first in a slew of books I (Amy) will be reading and reviewing in preparation for this upcoming election. I won’t be telling you who I’m voting for…merely sharing with you what I learn from the books I read…I think it’s important to understand both candidates as much as possible before election day!)

I love using Calvin Miller’s Devotionals. I found the first one I used, “The Christ of Christmas” when browsing in a local Christian bookstore in St. Louis. I bought it to help me really get ready for the spiritual significance of the holiday. It did just that. The next one I bought was “The Christ of the Easter” which helped me again zero in on what Easter is all about. Because I loved these books so much I also bought “The Christ We Knew: Eyewitness Accounts from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.” Even though I have had this book for several years, I am just now getting into it. It is thought-provoking and very helpful. The devotionals have really given me something to chew on for several days a piece. The format of this particular book is you first read the devotional on a particular passage of Scripture in one of the Gospels, then you read the entire chapter from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. This book includes classical art and explanations of each picture and gives a little information about the artist.

Calvin Miller’s writing is profound, yet easy to read and practical. The Christ We Knew takes you through the birth of Christ right to the Ascension of Christ. Each book is divided into 31 days of devotions. I usually spend about 5-10 minutes each morning before work reading them – that’s about how long it takes. I have gone back to reread several.

Calvin Miller is a writer and speaker. He worked with others on the translation of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Miller is a career pastor and teaches at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. For more information on Calvin Miller visit his web site at www.calvinmillerauthor.com

About the Book: Organic for Health will convince you to avoid conventionally grown foods laden with the biggest offenders, and more importantly, to fill your body with the clean, potent vitamins and minerals in organic foods that truly honor your health.

My Review: This topic is one that I’m endlessly fascinated by. I am always trying to learn more and so I jumped at the chance to review this book.

If you also are interested in healthier ways to eat and understanding just exactly why the way we eat in America is a danger to our health than you will enjoy this book. It’s written in an extremely straightforward manner, and kicks off with Sandy Powers’ own story about why she started to eat organically. It’s a pretty amazing story, and it will get your attention for the rest of the book! The book is divided into categories and gives you all the basic information that you need. The second half of the book is full of recipes. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but they look good. There’s also a glossary in the back that is very helpful for defining terms used throughout the book, and a note about why eating organically is a bit more expensive.

A great starter guide to better health.

You can visit Sandy on her website.

About the Book: Landing a publisher has never been harder. Even when you do, count on anemic royalty rates, 18 to 24 months to publication, and giving up the rights to your book. And you’ll still be expected to do most of the marketing yourself! There’s a better way. Thanks to the Internet, self-publishing has become easier, more viable, and more potentially lucrative than ever before. The Well-Fed Self-Publisher is a step-by-step how-to guide to help authors successfully and profitably self-publish their titles. It is based directly on the successful self-publishing of my first two books (currently 52,000 copies in print). The subtitle of the book is not hype: my first book earned me a full-time living for over four years, and both books together, six-plus. “Self-publishing” still carries a stigma, and sadly, in most cases, it’s earned and deserved. I’ve been successful largely because of my commitment to creating a superior product, both in form and content – all the “how-to” details of which I share in this book. With TWFSP, I help to raise the bar on self-publishing so that thousands of self-publishing authors don’t keep needlessly sabotaging themselves.Comprehensive ScopeFar more than just a book about the self-publishing process, TWFSP also features an entire chapter (Two) on developing the crucial “marketing mindset” most creative types lack, plus chapters on virtually every aspect of book marketing and promotion, plus distribution, POD, and five appendices (including extensive resources, timeline, foreign rights, and more). Visit “Why This Book?” (page xix) to learn why this book stands out in its field, though, in a nutshell, there are five keys: · Sales and Marketing Discussion (for non-salesy “Creatives”) ·A Radically Different Approach to Marketing (Internet, not media)· Focus on Process and Profit (most books focus only on the first) Personal, Engaging Writing Style (making learning a blast!) · One Big “Real-World” Case Study (totally non-theoretical)

My Thoughts: I thought this book was an incredible tool for anyone who has a book idea they’d like to see come to fruition and sell. I think a lot of us have a book in us and an area where we have something unique to offer, but we lack the practical knowledge of the industry and how to make it work. This is the book you need if that’s the case with you. You will learn everything you need to equip you to write and live off of that self-published book!

Bowerman’s writing style is easy and engaging, so you’re never bored, but rather fascinated with the realistic details he provides. In fact, his hard hitting honesty about the whole deal, while still making you believe this is possible may be the book’s greatest strength.

This book is recommended for anyone who is considering writing something to be published, whether self-published or not.

You can visit Peter at his website here.

I love personality studies and quite frankly there’s nothing so fun as learning more about yourself from them!  If you enjoy this same sort of thing, I think you’ll really like Charanavi. 

 Charanavi determines what sort of personality you have  based on your birthday.  The book starts with a short little introduction and then has a very useful chart so that you can go to your personal page.  I was the delicate elephant and the line that stuck out to me was that I don’t always listen attentively!  This is true, but I’ve always blamed it on being a bit ADD. 

 As long as you know someone’s birthday, you can find which character they are and this will help you to understand them better.  There are also some famous people listed who were in the same group so you can determine if you think they are alike.

 I taught English in Japan for over a year and this book is so Japanese to me!  The animal drawings are so cute and the pages are bright and colorful.  This really increased my personal enjoyment.

 If you enjoy personality studies and books than please give Charanavi a look, it might be a really fun tool to have at a party or on a girls night out!

I have been doing Beth Moore Bible studies on my own for many years. I buy the workbook and the CDs and go from there. Now I am just finishing up “Stepping Up – a journey through the Psalms of Ascent.” I am always challenged by these studies and Stepping Up is no exception. I do five days of intense study on the passages – in this case Psalms 120-134, then I listen to the accompanying teaching cd. The new feature is that now you can download each teaching session online through LifeWay. I will do this for the last session.

For the six week study, Beth has us read each psalm in two different versions of the Bible, then we “Say It, Work It, and Pray It.” After saying it and working it, you are very ready to pray it – praying Scripture in your own words. This has been very beneficial to me. By the way even though it is set up to be a six-week study, I take my time. I’ve been working on this since the end of January. So this six week study will take me 8-10 weeks.

The Psalms of Ascent were sung on the pilgrimage to the three great feasts – Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Tabernacles. The pilgrims go through many situations which we can easily relate to and they and we can learn many truths about God and His Word to apply to our own lives in difficult situations.

I highly recommend this and all of Beth Moore’s Bible studies. It is available through LifeWay bookstores.