Review: Purposeful Retirement Workbook & Planner: Wisdom, Planning and Mindfulness for Your Happiest Years

Purposeful Retirement Workbook & Planner: Wisdom, Planning and Mindfulness for Your Happiest Years by Hyrum W. Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read Smith's book that this workbook was based on a few months back. I liked the audio of the book, as it had a personality that came through in the writing that was not typical for such books. It felt more friendly. I assumed this would have that same personality. It really doesn't, but only because the writing here is pretty brief. I found one section of a page or two that had a different take on a retirement topic than expected, and so for that it was worthwhile. Given this is a "workbook and planner", you expect worksheets, and here you get a lot. The first half or more of the book consists of about half page of writing and half pages of questions and blanks to fill them out. Most are typical. One example, what did your parents do during their retirement. Mostly thinking, feeling questions, with a few lists (think bucket list). Nothing deeply financial. The second half or so of the book was very specifically focused on two exercises for time management. Given the author was the president of the company responsible for the Franklin Day Planner, I expected a focus on time planning. What I didn't expect was that there would be two exercises that take up almost half the book. The first exercise is to lay out the perfect day in retirement, assigning activities to hours, then to create additional schedules of perfect days that have slightly different focuses. Say a learning day, and a chores day, and a visit friends day. There are worksheets for five or ten of these day plans. Then, covering roughly the last 1/3 of the book, the author includes about 50 blank weekly schedules. Your assignment is to fill out the weekly schedules for the bulk of a year with those perfect days. Shades of Franklin and Day Timer and other time management systems, but applied to your retirement time.

I read this as an ebook, so the worksheets weren't very helpful, beyond getting me to think about the questions being asked. But I believe any reminder to plan and to think through your options is a good thing, so I will rate this positively. But don't expect miracles, and do expect the guy from Franklin will have something to say on planning your time. This doesn't repeat what was in Smith's book of the similar title, so it could be used as an additional resource.

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Review: Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina

Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina by Chris Frantz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back when I was in high school, I had musical tastes that ran counter to my traditional rural Midwestern classmates. While most were headbangers, or the milder version of arena rockers, or into post-outlaw country, I tended to the occasionally cerebral, often fun songs by artists outside of the mainstream as it existed where I was. Which means I enjoyed new wave, art rock, and the like, much of it British. Out of that conglomeration of sounds came “Psycho Killer”. I was a fan of Talking Heads from the time I first heard them. Got the vinyl, saw a 1982 concert, got some of the post-band albums, and even (much more recently) read David Byrne’s books on music and bicycles. Now, with Chris Frantz’s new book, you get the story from Chris and, maybe, wife and bandmate Tina Weymouth. Chris tells a personal version of events, from his early years to the formation of the band. His early band years stories are quite interesting, mixing the rock and roll business stories of touring, writing, and partying with his own story of falling in love with Tina. It seems they have their rolls here – David Byrne as the self-centered occasionally crazy one, Chris as the drug-taking but earnest one, and Tina as the beauty/Mom/responsible one (she's the Winnie Cooper of New Wave). Frantz provides an extremely detailed retrospective of their lives, with quite funny stories about the first major tour with the Ramones. Some of the later stories showed some reflection, as he talks about the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and about sailing.

As I listened to this audiobook, I found myself wondering a few things. One, how did he keep track of all the venues and all the anecdotes he relates here. At times, he even mentions the food they ate, forty years ago. I didn’t catch an explanation. Also, what was Tina’s role in the writing of this book? Perhaps this was described in the paper book, but in the audiobook with no addenda or intro, she is the often mentioned party who happens to live with the author, and who would have made a great co-author. This makes me wonder if Tina has her own book in the pipeline. When it comes to Tina, this book is a tribute to her from Frantz. He has absolutely nothing bad or critical to say about her. Perhaps she was greatly involved in writing this book but didn’t want her name on it because of this. Nevertheless, this is refreshing as a celebrity describing the love of his life, and I am surprised to say that this is the part, or theme of the book I feel I will remember the best.

I also wonder why Frantz reads the unabridged audio of his book. His tempo is very slow and plodding. I don’t think I could have listened to the entire book at normal speed, but at double speed it moved at a good pace. Still, there are a lot of stories here. Fans will find a lot of interest. I found it enjoyable, but you're left with a kind of bad taste for David Byrne. So now, I deserve a little break with some Tom Tom Club. Play that bass, Tina.


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Review: The Smell of the Night

The Smell of the Night by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another enjoyable Camilleri mystery. This one touches all the personal plot points from earlier books, such as the girlfriend, the nearly adopted son, the food,… We also find Montalbano, angry at the loss of a favorite olive tree, committing some serious vandalism to a house being built (including some strangely out of place and not further mentioned Disney statuary). Nice to see again that he’s human. The audio has the various policemen narrated in comic, “New Yark” accents that work better in cartoons. The extra “comic relief” the voices provided were not appreciated by me. I think the story stands well without the 40s movie wise guy talk.

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Review: The Moral Basis of Democracy

The Moral Basis of Democracy by Eleanor Roosevelt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this short book instead of reading a copy, right before starting an engaging mystery. I found little here that stood out. What I do recall is that Roosevelt decides to use the first third to half of the book to review colonial American policies to lend credence to the ethical and moral basis of democracy. This was a bit excessive and felt like filler added to beef this slim volume up. The other memorable thing was the belief in a Christian version of morality, especially in treating others with care and respect. The only other surprise was that a first lady would take on this topic. It was certainly a sign of the times, as well as an indication of the type of person Roosevelt was. Does the story resonate today, in 2020, in the era of outrage? Yes, I can see where she is coming from and I can buy that story, but I suspect there are more and more people that don’t buy into the base of this argument, that you should treat others with respect and care. I’m glad I read it, but found no big surprises.

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Review: Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World

Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn’t read the reviews before I read this. If I had, I would have known that the book contains some amazing looking sketches, lots of them, and that some of the content appears entwined in said sketches. I had the audiobook experience. I believe I missed out on much of the book’s charm.

Gaiman can write and can narrate his work well. It was a short, enjoyable listen.

But, I really dislike books where the title is misleading. You read (listen to) a book called “Art Matters” and you expect to hear about, well, art, mattering. Instead, roughly 80% of this book is about reading and librarians. I guess the marketers thought calling it “Libraries Matter” would limit sales, but that title much better describes the book and is something I whole-heartedly agree with. -1 for letting the marketing department chose your title.


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Review: A Horse Walks Into a Bar

A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever been asked to attend a performance by an acquaintance to support them? I’ve attended piano student concerts and Second City graduations, among other things. But what if the performance isn’t anything like you and the rest of the audience expected. That’s what you get here. The audience, including our narrator, are expecting a stand up comedy routine. What they get is closer to a performance art bit tied to a personal monologue, with some jokes thrown in in an attempt to keep the crowd calm and happy. You start thinking it’s stand up, but the comedian slowly interweaves his personal story into the comedy. You can feel for the audience as they trickle out of the performance, because the life story is harsh, and the comedy is often not so funny. But by the end, you feel for the comedian, describing some of the most difficult times of his life, and you feel for the few invited acquaintances who remain in the audience, and who were allowed to share in the grief and pain and to understand why they were invited. I like this more on reflection. Makes me wish I could walk on my hands.

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Review: Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess

Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I figured that this would be similar to other organizational books that I seem to read every couple months. I maintain this somewhat regular diet of such books in the hopes that 1) I get some new ideas, 2) I get some reminders of what I already know, and 3) I get some motivation to clean and organize and reduce my clutter. This was different in that instead of focusing on organizing clutter, it was more focused on relationships and the impact of others on where and how one lives. There are also some other sections about habit forming, cleaning, and digital life, really a hit or miss mix of topics. I wasn’t expecting the focus on relationships, and I didn’t get much out of this topic. The other topics were covered in short chapters, and I didn’t get much out of these either. There were some specific recommendations here, for instance how to organize papers in your desk, there were lots missing. This tended to the higher level, and much more aimed to the mental aspects. While not finding any useful new ideas, I did appreciate the different topics discussed in relation to “rules for living”, and I’m feeling a bit of motivation – so for that aspect it worked.

This is another of the many recent books that contain 4-letter words in the title, and that are written with a regular sprinkling of cussing throughout. While cussing in print was novel and lent an edgy feel a few years back, this practice seems very tired now. In particular, this book felt like the author had to exert effort to find places to put cussing into the text, and it results in feeling like a book by a marketer (or even a committee of marketers) meant to manipulate the reader into feeling that this was current and young. Instead it feels more shallow, and given that this is a short book to start with, that’s a very bad thing. (I’m sounding like my parents now.) At least they didn’t try to add Zombies.

I listened to the audio version of this book. This was fine for my purposes of hoping to glean some new ideas and to build some motivation. But as I check the "Look Inside" at Amazon for this book, it seems like there are more details than I remembered from listening. It looks like you may get a different take on the book if reading it given the topics seem to be better organized in print. (In other words, there are lists and subheaders and checklists that don't work as well in audio.)


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