Tag Archives: Net Galley

The Soul of a Woman, by Isabel Allende*****

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Isabel Allende has long been a guiding light for women, immigrants, and social justice activists. She is an old woman now, and her wisdom and word smithery have only grown deeper and wider. Thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

There are four sections to this compact memoir, and overall, it is a memoir of Allende’s feminist philosophy and experiences. She also describes the trajectory of the feminist movement and the gains that have been made.  One of Allende’s most agreeable attributes is her candor, and she discusses her relationships with the men she has married with disarming frankness and humor. Her voice is like nobody else’s.

Generally speaking, I find it annoying when an author uses space in the book they’ve sold us to advertise a product or beg for funds, nonprofit or not; however, this time I wanted to stand up and cheer! Allende’s foundation exists to support women’s reproductive choices, and that includes abortion. Out of all the years I’ve blogged, over one thousand reviews I’ve scribed, and I have never seen abortion rights advocated so forcefully. I bow in admiration.

If I could have something more from this iconic writer, it would be an overall autobiography. She has written numerous memoirs, but all of them focus fairly narrowly on one particular aspect or time period. I would love to have her whole story in her own words.

Highly recommended.

Easy Crafts for the Insane, by Kelly Williams Brown*****

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Kelly Williams Brown is an experienced author, but she is new to me. I ran across this odd little book at exactly the time I needed it, and maybe you do, too. My thanks go to Net Galley and Putnam Penguin for the review copy; this book will be available to the public July 6, 2021.

Brown points out that mental illness remains one of the few conditions that are cloaked in secrecy and shame. Nobody afflicted with bipolar disorder chooses it, and although it can be successfully treated, there’s no cure, either. The title of the book reflects her choice to simply own it. “This is the water I swim in…I wanted to talk about how I have come to be content in my own skin.”

In sharing her journey, she tells us how nearly impossible it is to find a psychiatrist within a reasonable commute, who takes your insurance; now try doing it while you are in a precarious state of mental illness. At one point things come to a head, and in a fugue of which she has no memory at all, she rises from bed and attempts suicide, nearly succeeding. Had her boyfriend not found her when he did, she would have died. “’Lots of people, they just take a few aspirin and say they want to die, but you meant it!‘  the very kind ER doctor says with something that sounds a tiny bit like begrudging approval.”

The crafting aspect of this book is partly a device, used to share what kind of mindset caused her to resort to it, and also which crafts are soothing at life’s most difficult times; several of the crafts she discusses are just as mysterious to me after reading her instructions as they were before. Her favorite little origami stars, which grace the book’s cover, are among these. And there are some crafts for which she tells us she has no clear instructions, and recommends YouTube tutorials, so that part’s kind of a wash. However, there are a couple of things that do sound interesting and that I might try. I initially rated this book four stars, thinking that if a person puts crafts in the title, the crafts should be clearly taught, but later I decided that this book really, truly isn’t about crafts.

Brown has money, and at times I am a little alienated by her wealth, that is obvious in her narrative. But she recognizes this, and she uses it to drive home the point:

“I had good insurance, and open schedule, and no internal conflict over therapy—and yet it was still fucking impossible. My privileged ass could barely make it happen. Think about the hurdles that Americans who don’t have these advantages face every day when they’re trying to access help!”

I have deliberately left out the humor here, the places that at times make me laugh out loud. You can find them for yourself. They are well placed, preventing the overall tone from becoming too grim.

 I found this book the day after dropping a close family member off at the psych ward of a local hospital, and it seemed almost like an omen that I should read it. If you are contemplating reading it, whether due to mental health issues of your own, or of those close to you, or simply out of curiosity, I highly recommend you do it. This little gem may become a cult favorite, and it would be a shame to be left out of the loop. And if it inspires you to be more vocal in advocating for mental health awareness and treatment, and of dragging this pervasive problem out of the attic and shining some light on it, then the world will be a better place.

The Kitchen Front, by Jennifer Ryan****

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I enjoyed Ryan’s historical novel, The Spies of Shilling Lane, and so I was thrilled when Ballantine Books and Net Galley offered me a review copy for this one. It’s for sale now.

The story is set in rural England during World War II. We have four protagonists, all of them women. Audrey Landon is a widow; her husband died in the war, leaving her with two boys to raise on her own. The old family home, which she inherited from her parents, is falling apart, and she has no means to repair it. In some places, the roof has caved in.

The second is Audrey’s sister, “Lady” Gwendoline. Gwen puts herself first at all times, since nobody else ever has. She married for wealth and convenience, and she lords her affluence over her sister and everyone else. But her husband is a cruel man, and her existence is a lonely one despite its material comfort.

Zelda was a top chef in London, but once her pregnancy became visible, she had to get gone. Her landlord calls her a “trollop,” and she knows she can’t stay there now, so she applies for wartime housing. The volunteer in charge of placing her is Lady Gwendoline, who snickers with amusement as she assigns her to live in Audrey’s house.

Nell is a chef’s assistant at Fenley Hall, the prestigious old pile where Lady Gwendoline and Sir Strickland hold court. The chef, Mrs. Quince, has taught her nearly everything she knows, and it’s a good thing, too; the old lady isn’t getting any younger.

All four women enter a cooking contest held by the Ministry of Food, a “wartime cooking challenge” to showcase recipes that use ordinary ingredients and work around rationing.  The winner will be the new announcer for The Kitchen Front, a wartime radio program—and this program existed in real life.

As in the last story, Ryan develops her four characters in a way I believe; the most benevolent have flaws, and the most unsympathetic, Lady Gwendoline, is complex and capable of change. It is Gwendoline that is most developed at the end, but all four are dynamic characters.

For a brief while, I use the audio version of this book, which I obtain from my local library. Jasmine Blackborow does a fine job as reader in most regards, but there is a side character that turns up in a couple of emotionally charged scenes, an Italian prisoner of war, and when she voices him, he sounds like Dracula, which ruins the magic. For this reason, I recommend sticking to the printed version.

The first half of this story is almost unputdownable, and for a time I nearly forget my other books. But as the climax approaches, things become predictable, almost formulaic, and the ending is a bit too tidy for my tastes. The scenes toward the end with Mrs. Quince are overwrought.  It’s not terrible, but because I am so far in love with the first half, I am disappointed by the denouement. Also, if recipes must be included, as apparently they must, the author should give them character by using the substituted ingredients in the instructions; the more desirable ingredients can be footnoted.

Ultimately I rate The Kitchen Front four stars; five for the first half, three for the second.

The Memory Collectors, by Kim Neville***

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2.5 stars, rounded upward.

I was truly excited to read this book; perhaps too much so. It’s not a bad novel, but not the crowning wonder that I was expecting. My thanks go to Atria Books and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review.

Ev lives in poverty, sorting through trash in hope of finding treasures that she can improve upon and sell. As the story unfolds, we are momentarily off-balance, learning about Ev and the setting primarily through context. We learn early on that Ev has a traumatic past—with the particulars doled out in dribs and drabs to create suspense—and that she has an unusual gift, that of feeling the powerful emotions experienced by the item’s former owner. She wears gloves to prevent herself from becoming overwhelmed, particularly by the negative feelings some objects project.

Harriet is an elderly woman with similar gifts, and she’s in search of an heir. When she and Ev collide over contested objects, she wants to hire Ev. Ev resists at first, but is eventually drawn in after carefully negotiating her terms. An important side character is Ev’s long-lost sister, Noemi, who pops back into Ev’s life unexpectedly. Noemi’s role here is to reveal the past events that have scarred her elder sister, as well as to motivate Ev to be successful and build a better life.

At the outset, I am impressed by the writing, and it looks like the hype is deserved, because I am immediately engaged. But as the story moves forward, it becomes slower, then slooower, then slooooower…and I realize that this is one more fantasy novel in which the one original aspect, the “stains” that reveal the character of an object to people like Ev and Harriet, is just about all the author is going to give us. Everything else, from the revelations about the past, to the relationship between the sisters, to the dynamics between the elder and younger sensitive women, to the problem posed by another gifted but malign person, to uh, everything, is sort of lackluster and tedious. The character development is shallow and barely there. I never become comfortably acquainted with the world in which these women exist. It’s as if the author has trotted out this one device—I’m trying hard not to call it a gimmick—and then figures her job is done.  There isn’t much else that I haven’t seen done much better by other writers. In the end, I tossed it on the DNF pile.

I read this story digitally, but I alternated it with the audio version, and am inclined to recommend the audio version slightly more to those that plan to read it. Initially I don’t like the way that the reader, Emily Woo Zeller, voices Noemi, using a chirpy, almost shrill voice, but after I have listened for a bit over an hour, I become accustomed to it and grow to regard the character with a fondness I don’t find for the other characters. Instead of perceiving her as shrill, I begin to think, “Oh, it’s okay; that’s just the way Noemi is.” Since I don’t fully believe any of the other characters, I have to give Zeller props for her performance.

This book is for sale now; get it free or cheap if you’re interested, but don’t shell out the full jacket price unless your pockets are deep ones.

The Power Couple, by Alex Berenson****

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Alex Berenson has done it again! I first read his work when I found a galley for The Prisoner, the eleventh in his John Wells series. When I saw that this stand alone thriller was available, I jumped on it. My thanks go to Net Galley and Simon and Schuster for the review copy.  The Power Couple is a fast read and a fun one, and I recommend it to you.

Rebecca (call her Becks) and Brian Unsworth are type A achievers, and both work for the federal government; she is a spy, and he is a hacker. But like so many couples, the similarities that brought them together are getting in their way now. With their children, Kira, who is nineteen, and Tony, who is younger, they take off for Europe to let off steam and spend quality time together. Maybe.

Early in the story, Kira is abducted, and from there forward, the pacing is perfect. Now and then Berenson pulls us back a bit as he shares sketches from their pasts that lead up to this event, but each reminiscence is brief, and the shift between points of view and time periods adds to the suspense. We see their lives through the perspectives of all except Tony, who is a minor character. In the end, Kira is the one we like best. (Trust me.) There’s not a lot of character development, but this isn’t that kind of novel.

I don’t want to give more away, because if I kill any surprises, you won’t enjoy the story as much; what I will say is that even if your own marriage is less than perfect, it is a shining beacon of integrity and affection when contrasted with that of the Unsworths.

This book is for sale now, and just right to take on vacation with you.

The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult***

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I am generally a fan of Picoult’s writing, but my favorite part of this book is when I got to close it and put it away.  My thanks go, nevertheless, to Net Galley and Ballantine Books for the review copy.

Dawn is the sole survivor of a plane wreck, and as it goes down, she is assaulted by regret about the road not taken.  (My apologies to Frost.) On land once again, she decides to go back to the life she abandoned when she married and had her daughter, to see what might have been; the life she was preparing for was that of an Egyptologist.

There have been times when a novel features some area of history or science that I’ve never studied, and I find it so mesmerizing that it becomes my new favorite area to explore. This was not one of those times. In fact, it took me four tries to get through this thing, and even then, I skimmed much of the story from the fifty to seventy percentiles.  I tried the audio version; no joy there, either. I grew bored and my mind wandered; then I didn’t understand what I was reading, so I had to go back over it to pick up the part I’d daydreamed through.

In my defense, however, I have to say that the organization and frequently shifting points of view and time periods is enough to confuse the best of us, or at least give us whiplash.

Picoult’s strength is creating strong, resonant female protagonists that are easy to bond with, but I didn’t ever warm up to Dawn. Let’s take, for example, the notion of simply walking away, not only from your husband that loves you and with whom, till now, you’ve had a loving and solid relationship; there’s the matter of walking away from a child, or considering doing so. No, no, no. No. NO.

But mostly, this story just bored the living snot out of me.

I have provided three stars, because some readers will enjoy the lessons in Egyptology; if you’ve always wanted to know more within this realm, perhaps this book will work for you. If you go there, though, get it free or cheap; don’t sink full cover price into this turkey.

The Recent East, by Thomas Grattan*****

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The Recent East introduces novelist Thomas Grattan, and it’s an impressive debut. It follows a family of German-Americans from 1965, when the eldest emigrates from East Germany with her parents, to the present. I initially decide to read it because of the setting; it’s the first fiction I’ve read set in the former Soviet satellite country. However, it is the characters that keep me engaged to the last page.

My thanks go to Net Galley and McMillan for the review copy; this book is for sale now.

The story opens in 1965 as Beate and her parents are defecting:

Everyone talked about the West as if it were a secret. They leaned in to share stories of its grocery stores that carried fresh oranges, its cars with bult-in radios. Covered their mouths to mention a Dusseldorf boulevard that catered to movie stars and dictators, whole Eastern month’s salaries spent on face cream. There were entire, whispered conversations about its large houses and overstuffed stores, its borders crossed with a smile and a flick of one’s passport. Some talked about it as if it were the most boring thing. Others like it was an uppity friend. But everyone talked about it…

The first chapter makes me laugh out loud. Teenage Beate is mocked when she enrolls in school in Cologne, because her clothing is nowhere near as nice as what the kids in West Germany wear. Since her parents cannot afford to upgrade her wardrobe just yet, Beate comes up with the genius idea to alter the clothes she owns to make them look as Soviet as possible, and she “put on her Moscow face, worked on her Leningrad walk.” Sure enough, the kids at school are terrified of her now. She still doesn’t have friends, but she isn’t bullied anymore.

Morph forward in time. Beate is a mother now, living in upstate New York with her two adolescent children and unhappy husband. When the Berlin Wall falls, so does her marriage. Soon afterward, she is notified that her late parents’ house now belongs to her. She packs up her belongings and her children, then buys tickets to Germany.

Adela and Michael have always been close, but the move shakes their relationship. Their usual routines are shattered, and their mother, reeling from the divorce, becomes withdrawn and uncommunicative. What a terrible time to disengage from parenting! Both Michael and Adela roam the city of Kritzhagen at will, at all hours of the night. Michael is just 13 years old and gay; sometimes he doesn’t come home at all at night. I read these passages, written without obvious judgment or commentary, with horror. A new house, new city, new country, new continent, and it’s now that their mother forgets to set boundaries? I want to find this woman and slap her upside the head (though I guess that’s a different sort of boundary violation.) Half the houses in town stand empty, and since they have no furniture of their own and their mother is doing nothing to acquire it, Michael breaks into houses and steals furnishings. Look, Ma, I found us some chairs.

My jaw drops.

Adela goes in the other direction, becoming a conscientious student and social justice advocate. But their mother pays her no attention, either.

For the first half of this story, it seems like a four star novel to me; well written, competent, but nothing to merit great accolades. This changes in the second half, because all three of these characters are dynamic, and the changes in them are absolutely believable and deeply absorbing.

I have friends that do social work, and what they have told me is this: children that are forced to become the adults in the family, taking on responsibilities they’re too young for when a parent abdicates them, often appear to miraculously mature, competent beyond their years. Everything is organized. They may do the jobs as well as any adult, and sometimes better than most. How wonderful!

But because they aren’t developmentally ready for these things yet, what happens is that later, when they are grown, they fall apart and become breathtakingly immature, because they have to go back and live their adolescent years that were stolen from them. (As a teacher, I saw this in action a couple of times.)  And so I am awestruck by how consistently our Grattan’s characters follow this pattern.

As the second half progresses, I make a couple of predictions, one of which is sort of formulaic, but Grattan does other things, and they’re far better than what I’d guessed. We follow these characters for several decades, and at the end, we see the relationship that blooms between Beate and her grandson. When it’s over, I miss them.

Because Michael is gay and is one of our three protagonists, this novel is easily slotted into the LGTB genre, but it is much more than this. Instead, one should regard it as a well-written story in which one character is gay.

But whatever you choose to call this book, you should get it and read it if you love excellent fiction.

Broken, by Jenny Lawson****-*****

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4.5 stars, rounded up.

Jenny Lawson, AKA The Bloggess, has a new book out, and I do believe it’s my favorite. My thanks go to Net Galley and Henry Holt for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Lawson bucks a somewhat disquieting trend, and I am so glad. The trend is to make the first three chapters—most likely what sells the book—sterling, and then fill the rest with mediocre, highly missable prose. In contrast, the earliest part of this memoir is good, but it’s not great. She starts slow and then builds toward most of her best material, leaving me smiling as the book concludes.

But let’s go back to the material at the start, which I find to be random in a way that yearns for the hand of a high profile editor. I’m throwing my hands up, wondering just why a professional writer would blather on like this. Can she write a coherent sentence, and then end it when it’s over? Of course, I continued reading and loved the essays in the middle, and as we draw near the end, she refers to the challenges she encounters in writing, citing her inclination to overwrite, and the resultant paragraphs that contain “a run-on sentence that would make an English teacher cut herself,” and I howled, because that’s it, exactly. Almost exactly, I mean; I was moaning, but I hadn’t reached for anything sharp.

What is it about depression and humor, and the connection between them? It’s hard to tease apart all of the components that make Lawson’s writing so compelling; to a certain extent, it’s alchemy of the human spirit, I suppose, combined with skill at self-expression. But there are other components much easier to spot. One is her disarming frankness; for example, she mentions that people, remarking on her twentieth wedding anniversary, ask about her secrets for a long and happy marriage, and she tells us that actually, not all of those years have been happy. There are good periods, and there are bad periods. And then she adds, not entirely jokingly, that part of the reason she is still married is that there are things in her marriage that she doesn’t write about.

But even more compelling is her level of perception, and her ability to understand the subtext of just about everything.

I’ll mention my favorite parts, but I am not giving up any more humorous quotes, because that’s a crappy thing to do to a humor writer. There’s a funny part having to do with shoes, and the kayaking trip from hell, which she dubs “Divorce Creek.” The chapter about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, which is a serious bit for the purpose of informing us, is interesting and may be of help to a number of readers. (However, the searing honesty about her suicidal impulses might actually be a trigger for a profoundly depressed reader.) And the infuriating experiences she has had dealing with insurance makes me want to throw things, but it is important that she includes them here.

If you’re a fan of The Bloggess’s writing, you have to get this book. If you are new to her work, you can dive into this memoir without reading her previous ones. Highly recommended.

Well-Read Black Girl, by Glory Edim, editor****

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Ahem. Yes, I am in fact, over two years late with this review. I can explain.

My dog ate…no, wait. I got a flat tire when…oh. Yeah, that doesn’t work.

So now I have to tell the truth, having failed miserably, as I usually do, at lying. Here it is. About a month after I received the galley to this book, courtesy of Net Galley and Random House, national news and social media went into a virtual frenzy discussing cultural appropriation. And I froze. I started examining everything I did through that lens, and I may have gone overboard. I looked at this galley and I thought, I have no right to review this thing. And when I read the introduction anyway, I feel it even more so. Not written with me in mind, was it? Was this the literary equivalent of reading someone else’s mail? And so I did the easy thing, which was to shove it onto the back burner and read something else. Repeatedly.  

Several months later, it occurred to me that nobody would even have to know if I were to sneak it out of my files and just read the article by Jesmyn Ward, which was actually why I had originally requested it. Ward is on my read-anything list. I read it, and I liked it, and then I shuffled it back into the file. No harm done.

This spring, as the world tentatively emerges, one hopeful toe at a time, from the isolation imposed on all of us by the horrific pandemic, I realize what I should have known all along: that anybody can read anything, and form an opinion about it; and that since I was granted the galley, I actually owe a review. I straightened my spine, dusted myself off, and sat down to read it. There was no blinding light or thunder from the heavens. Nothing smote me. I read it, and I lived to tell the tale.

Most of the authors here are new to me; in addition to Ward, I also know Jacqueline Woodson’s work a bit, mostly from my years teaching language arts, when I used her YA book. Everyone here included in this compendium is a strong writer, and they are largely preaching to the choir, since the audience are also bibliophiles. But the common thread, the point they drive home—and rightly so—is the importance of finding literature about girls that look like themselves. They speak of it as empowerment and validation.

Back in the stone age, when this reviewer was enrolled in a teacher education program, we were likewise taught the importance of inclusive literature. It seemed so obvious to me, this obligation teachers surely have to make sure all of their students are represented in the books their students read, or have read to them. I figured it was a no-brainer. But when I arrived at my first teaching position in elementary school, (heaven help me and those children both,) I was shown the supply closet and there were the classroom book sets. The main characters were Caucasian boys; Caucasian boys and girls; fluffy woodland animals, mostly male; and more Caucasian boys. I sadly examined my battered Visa card and drove to the bookstore to order better books. And I was further amazed to learn, later, that my colleagues, all of whom were Caucasian, believed that the school’s book collection was terrific. Their students loved those books, and that included the children of color that made up approximately half of the population there, they told me.

Sure they did.

The essays in Well-Read Black Girl are a much-needed reminder that racism isn’t always overt; sometimes racism is exclusionary, unintentionally so. And what silences young voices, and what teaches children that books, and life in general, are not about them, worse than discovering that they are not important enough to be included in books?

When I moved to secondary education, where I belonged, I visited the book room there, and I found a set of books about African-American boys, but the message inherent was that they are constantly exposed to drugs and gangs, and it will be hard as heck not to be drawn in. And once again, I scratched my head. These Black kids, most of them were from middle class homes, or loving, well supervised working class homes. Drugs? Not so much. And what did these books teach their Caucasian classmates about Black people? I sighed and got back in the car, already apologizing silently to my Visa once more.

This collection of essays is important, not because of any particular brilliance in composition; they are well written, but not memorable for the writing itself. Instead, they are the key to understanding, from primary sources, why Black girls need books that depict Black girls and women in a positive light.

I’ve assigned four stars to this book for general audiences, but for teachers in training, it is five stars. Every teacher training program should include these essays as required reading. We have to read it until we get it right.

Mother May I, by Joshilyn Jackson*****

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Joshilyn Jackson is one of my favorite authors, and so I was delighted to see that she has another novel coming out this spring. My heartfelt thanks go to Net Galley, Harper Audio, and William Morrow for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

One of the things I love about Jackson is that she recognizes and includes social class as a large factor in the lives of her characters. I am initially sorry to see that her protagonist, Bree Cabbat, is married to a wealthy man, but once the story unfolds, it becomes obvious that the story won’t work any other way. Although Bree is rolling in it now, she grew up poor, the child of a single parent that took her back-to-school shopping at a Goodwill two towns over from their tiny Georgia town, carefully making sure that Bree’s classmates not recognize their own castoffs when Bree wore them. Later, theater classes helped Bree refine her accent to make her more employable; acting lessons helped her project the carefree confidence that is common to young adults whose families have money.

Now she is married to Trey, a man “who’d grown up with Scooters and Biffs and Muffys.” As the story progresses, there are frequent subtle reminders of this; Trey has a gun safe; Trey has a bottle of whiskey, a gift, that cost over two thousand dollars; their daughters are in an upscale school with a nice theatre program, and their daughters are enrolled in extracurricular activities like Quiz Bowl and Robotics. Yes, our Bree has come up in the world, alrighty. And so when their baby is kidnapped out from under her very nose, naturally Bree’s assumption is that there will be a ransom, and that she and Trey will pay it.

But this time, she is oh so wrong.

When the call comes, it turns out to be a very elderly woman bent on exacting revenge against Trey’s business partner, who is also his cousin. Bree must do exactly as she says, because if she sees any sign of police, “I’ll break his flimsy neck…I’ll twist his little head right around backward.”

Dear God.

 This story grabbed me by the hair and didn’t let me go till I was done with it. I was initially approved for the audio version, and by the time I was given access to the print version, I had finished the first galley. Ordinarily, when something like this happens, I write my review, submit it to both places, and figure my work is done here. But for Jackson I do due diligence and more, and it’s a pleasure to read her book twice, so I did. And while both versions are excellent, I give a slight edge to the audio version. Print is a desirable medium anytime one is reading any mystery, because sometimes we want to flip back to check a detail or two. But Jackson always records her own audio books, and so I know the interpretation of the reader is always completely consistent with the writer’s intention. And in this case, the key side character—Marshall, an ex-cop that was married to Bree’s best friend, now dead—has a distinctive voice that comes through somewhat in the printed version, but much more plainly in the audio. I love the way she voices him, and although Marshall isn’t the protagonist, his role in this story is critical. The narrative shifts between Bree, who speaks to us from the first person limited, and Marshall, who comes to us in the third person.

The story carries an added social justice component: it’s MeToo on steroids. The things we learn about the men in the story add complexity, and though there’s a trigger or two here, I suspect most female readers will find the denouement deeply satisfying. I do.

The ending would ordinarily be deemed over-the-top, but because I believe the characters and story so completely by the time we get there, I also believe the resolution.

The one thing I would change here, if I wanted to be picky, would be to find a way to inject some of the epic laugh-out-loud humor I have enjoyed in Jackson’s earlier books. But that’s a tall order, given the intensity of this one.

One way or the other, this book is guaranteed to be one of the year’s very best. Don’t let yourself be left out. I strongly recommend this book to you, even at full cover price.