The Book of Even More Awesome - Awesomeness

Pros: More awesome things.
Cons: Read sparingly or the writing style will drive you nuts
The Bottom Line: Need a reason to perk up? Read a few pages from the book o'awesomeness.

It’s hard to ignore a book when it’s called The Book of Awesome.  I enjoyed that one, so when I saw that there was a second book I went ahead and read it.  After all, it’s a book full of little things that are simply awesome.  What have you got to lose from that?

This is the next installment – The Book of Even More Awesome.  And that’s really all it is.  Each few pages discusses something that’s awesome in this world.  Those little things in life that make us happy.  Like what, you may ask?  How about a few of the following to make you smile:

Coming back to your own bed after a long trip.  Oh, how I can relate to this.  Especially after a camping trip.  I love camping, but the idea of a soft, warm bed with a big cushy pillow?  Oh yeah, it’s like coming back to a little slice of heaven.  Helps you appreciate just how good you’ve got it, too.

Sneaking cheaper candy into the movie theater.  Hey, why spend $3 when you can spend $0.75?

Stomping dry, crunchy leaves on the sidewalk.  I still totally do this.  Which is why it’s such a disappointment when a leave masquerades as crunchy only to go “pleh” when you stomp it.  But those crunchy ones…ooh.  It’s like running through a bag of chips.

Finally getting that tiny piece of popcorn out of your teeth.  Oh sweet lord, I had that happen yesterday.  Ohyeah.  Sweet relief.

And one more because oh yes baby, it is indeed awesome:

When it feels like the lyrics of the song you’re listening to were written just for you.  Haha.  Actually for me it’s not so much that they were written for me, but more like God made sure that song played so I could hear it because it matched my mood.  I always laugh and shout, “YES!”

This is only a snippet of what this book has to offer you.  It’s fun and a good read, though I do recommend reading it in snippets.  Perhaps a few pages before going to bed or after waking up for the day?  Once again there are randomly bolded words and phrases (still have no idea why).  But the reason I recommend this book in small doses is because of the way it’s written.  The style is extremely repetitive and reading it in larger chunks actually started to drive my inner editor crazy.  I keep wondering how the agent/editor didn’t pick up on this (maybe they didn’t think it mattered?).

But the style is basically, “So do this, say that, and la-de-da.”  Triple action sentences.  Done in an almost lyrical way in how they read – possibly because there are so many of them.  I mean, almost every page there was a sentence like that, if not more than one.  Here’s a clearer example, “Just lock that door, shutter those blinds, and crank the bumping music.”  Action, action, and action.  It just became too much.  Not so awesome.

Aside from that, it’s a book full of delightful things (some of which may not apply to you, but you can see how they’d be awesome to others) that can help perk up your day – especially if you encounter that particular awesome something later on.

NT

Originally posted on Epinions.com

The Illustrated Dream Dictionary by Russell Grant - What Does Naked at a Party Mean?

 

Pros: Kind of cute.
Cons: Some words are hard to find. I'll explain.

 

The Bottom Line: It's coloful, fun, not very accurate, but amusing to have on hand from time to time.

 

 

Ok the very first thing I would like to do is WARN YOU. You see, there is an introduction to this book, which is a very good one by the way, but I read it and then that night had a dream about practically everything the introduction talked about. It was ridiculous. So I’m warning you now – reading the interesting introduction might cause you to have dreams about it that night.

 

Heh.

 

Moving on. In 2004 I got this book as a present on my birthday and thought, “Hey, cool, I needed one of these.”

 

I hate to seem rude or ungrateful (after all, it is just a dream dictionary), but there are definitely better dream dictionaries out there. Sure it’s illustrated, but man, it’s definitely not organized like a dictionary and it’s really hard to find what you want half the time.

 

Let’s start with the pictures. They’re very cute and colorful and just fun to look at. Actually the first thing I did with this was look through it and check out all the pictures. Each one depicts a possible dream, and will have the title beneath it in case you can’t figure it out. They look like they could be watercolor or something…

 

But to the actual dictionary part. I can’t say I know how accurate it is because, well, I don’t – I’m not a dream expert, that’s why I wanted a dictionary (doy). But I will say this. The words you want are hard to find in the first place. Sure the main words are in all capital letters, but everything behind them is in a block paragraph (not indented underneath if it’s long enough) format, which allows the main words to just fade in. That’s okay though, because you can still see them.

 

The second problem is the grouping of the words, which leads into the third problem of having a fun time trying to find the word you want. If you want to find “snake” you can’t just look up “snake.” You have to go to “Animals” and then look under there somewhere amongst the monkeys and dogs and find it. This poses a problem for other things. If I have something I want to look up and I can’t find it, I then have to either A.) think of a synonym for that word (i.e. I wanted “cup” but now I’ll try “glass”) or B.) try and think of what it could be under and look that up and possibly even find a synonym for that because I can’t remember which words will have more under them. The one I always seem to have problems with is the “Anger/Confrontation” heading because I always forget it’s called that because I just wanna look up what it means when I punch someone in the face – not that it happens all the time or anything…

 

But in all truth, they are just dreams and it can be just for fun. I’m not going to recommend it because I don’t think it’s impressive or important enough to really bother with. I think it's main problem is that it makes it seem as though your dreams are telling you the future instead of showing you how you feel right now. But hey, at least if you ever get it for a present, now you’ll know what to expect!

 

NT

 

P.S. NAKEDNESS - Nakedness in a dream is quite common. If you see yourself naked then things are about to improve. You may even have a stroke of money luck.

Notes from the playlist: "Summertime Sadness" by Within Temptation

Recommended for A Bit of AWESOME!

The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

When I first came upon this book one day at work, I had two thoughts. 1.) I need to read this book. 2.) Why is it in the Self Improvement section?

Though I never did quite figure out why it's in that section, I most certainly ended up reading it and I had a good time in the process. The concept is simle: Awesome Things. Those little things in life that are, well, awesome. Like walking past a bakery and snorting up that delicious smell of baking bread and cookies and yummy things. Or freshly fallen snow. Or, everyone's favorite, popping bubble wrap. There are literally hundreds of yippee-skippee things in here that will, at some point, jog a delighted part in your brain that makes you say, "Omigod, YAY" as you suddenly remember just how awesome that particular thing is. One of those for me?

The smell of the coffee isle in the grocery store. AWESOME!

Read the Epinions review here!

Notes from the playlist: "The Kraken" by Hans Zimmer (AWESOME!)

Recommended for Business Workers, Writers, and Procrastinators

The Now Habit by Neil Fiore

I'd read a review of this book and was then lucky enough to win it from the reviewer once she finished with all her procrastination-based books. If this were a group meeting, I would stand up and announce, "My name is Nicole and I am a procrastinator." I am, after all. However, after reading this book I handle it much better. I've learned to deal with my procrastination issues, the stress that tended to come with them, and the "I should" statements for when I wasn't working and always had in my mind that I should be. Fiore reminds you that it's okay to take some time off and enjoy some play time. After all, we know what happened to Jack with all work and no play. It's a solid book and I'd only read half of it before already feeling a great deal more positive about work (not the bookselling, the writing). Hooray!


Notes from the playlist: "Fireflies" by Owl City