50 Book Challenge: #4 The Lost Girls

Warning: This book will give you a travel bug!

I’ve gotten lost within the pages of The Lost Girls for the past two weeks on the subway or curled up on the weekend on my couch or bed. I love getting lost within the pages of a book and if you love traveling and themes of finding yourself then I completely recommend this book.

The best way the book is described as is:

Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.

With their 28th birthdays looming, three friends quickly rocketing towards management positions, mortgages, and marriages, all share a similar fear: Is this what they want, or what they think they should want?

Feeling in serious need of perspective, they decide to leave it all behind, quit their jobs, and begin an epic search for meaning and enlightenment. Traveling 60,000 miles around the world, from the mountains and jungles of South America to the beaches of Australia, passing through Kenya, India, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand along the way, the trio will not only find themselves, but a lifelong friendship.

The book made me want to grab girlfriends wild enough to leave for a year and travel. I loved reading about their time spent in Kenya and India. Now after reading Eat, Pray, Love and this book I have this craving to do a yoga trip to the country!

This is definitely recommended. I want to pack my backpack and take off.

50 Book Challenge: #3 It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be

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This is a pocket bible for those in advertising. The book was written by Paul Arden, a former ECD (Executive Creative Director) of Saatchi and Saatchi. Although his pearls of wisdom can be applied to other industries he shares tidbits of information on how to respond to briefs, pitches and career advice for climbing the ranks of the agency world. The other parts about problem solving and positive thinking are universal and great for anyone to read.

My boss deposited her copy of this book on my desk. I threw it in my bag and read it in one subway ride one day. It’s a really quick read so I almost felt guilty calling it book 3 in my 50 book challenge. But a book is a book and I may have cut some corners with this one as it took me almost 2 weeks to read book 4!

My favourite part of this book was the one page on achieving the unachievable. My year seems to be focusing on the power of positive thinking and using your mindset to direct your life on the path you should take. Since this is an easy read I recommend picking it up powering through it and passing it along. My boss is generously sharing with our entire team and I love the idea.

50 Book Challenge: #2 I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This

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From Amazon.com: Kate White—New York Times bestselling author, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan for fourteen years, and motivational speaker—shares her gutsy secrets to success in this witty, straight-talking new career guide for women.

Whether you’ve just settled into your first work cubicle and have no clue how to go after the success you crave, or you’ve already got a sweet little office but you aren’t sure how to take your career to the next level, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This gives you all the secrets you need to become a success, go big with it, and then savor every second. It is jam-packed with insider strategies, interviews with women at the top of their game, and Kate’s advice from her own career running five major magazines (including one of the bestselling women’s magazines in the world, Cosmopolitan). She shows you how to break out of the pack, master the learning curve, make bold moves, and, ultimately, have the career you’ve always lusted for!

What I Say: I wish I would’ve had this book when I was first starting out in my career but I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much as I do now. It was refreshing to read and see what mistakes I’ve made along the way and what I’ve potentially done right. This is the perfect book for the newbie or the mid level or someone who wants to shake up the corporate world. Perfect Alpha Female approved reading material!

My favourite chapter is about Draining The Swamp. Taking steps to put this into practice for my career. You will just have to read it now to understand the power of that advice!

The book makes me want to corral Kate White in a boardroom and beg her to be my personal mentor.

50 Book Challenge: #1 The Paris Wife

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From the book jacket:

In 1920 Chicago, Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness – until she meets the youthful returning war hero Ernest Hemingway, and is captivated by his good looks, intensity, and a passionate desire to write. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris. Soon they are the golden couple at the heart of a lively and volatile group of expatriates that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. But hard-drinking, fast-living Jazz Age Paris is at odds with traditional notions of family and monogamy.

The two move to Toronto to have their son, Bumby, and it is there that Ernest galvanizes his creative ambitions. The Hemingways return to Paris on a wave of optimism, but new challenges begin to chip away at their happiness. As Hadley struggles with jealousy and self-doubt and Ernest wrestles with his writing career, the pair must confront a deception that could prove the undoing of one of the great romances in literary history.

A heart rendering tale of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant for kowning that at the end of his life, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

USA Today wrote that the book was powerful and devastating. I finished the book on January 1st, having started it on the train ride back to Toronto from Ottawa. I don’t think I was prepared for how devastating the book would be for me.

I wanted to read the book after reading my friend Catriona’s review. Both her and some other friends have stated they dove into Hemingway after reading the book. I think I need a bit of a break from him.

I find the 1920’s a fascinating era and love reading about the time period. I am definitely a hopeless romantic and reading about the blurred lives of the times and the people that surround Hem and Hadley was difficult for me to put my head around the loose love notions of the time. It also made me really think about how people’s lives reflect who they surround themselves with. Can man really be an island when surround with different values? Notions of monogamy only working if you resist and throw out all temptation and thoughts about how are we all destined to have more than one love in a lifetime are swirling in my head. This book has definitely given me a book hangover and I need to throw myself into some happy, cheerful chick lit next!

50 (Maybe 25) Book Challenge – The First 25

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After following in awe of my friend Catriona as she read through 50 books this year I was inspired to do my own challenge in 2013. I tend to read a lot as I have an hour commute by subway twice a day. Otherwise I wouldn’t get the chance to read nearly as often.

I figured one book a week can’t be that crazy. I don’t want reading to become a chore though so I was a bit hesitant to commit to 50. But I always do everything with full force so I reached a bit of a compromise. Since I’m slightly OCD I thought I should plan out all 50 books for the next year. Once I got to 25 I stopped though. I will plan 25 and let 25 come to me through recommendations and what’s hot… Here’s to a year of reading!

So I’m officially going to read 25 and unofficially another 25 if I can 🙂

I used the website Goodreads.com to plan this out!