Welcome to Issue 73 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!
Happy Autumn, Everyone!
’Tis the “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun” as the poet John Keats described it in one of my favorite poems, “To Autumn.” I am always happy to welcome cooler temperatures, and of course, Halloween, one of this 
Gothic Wanderer’s favorite holidays—that’s a shameless plug to remind you I’m the author of The Gothic Wanderer and also Haunted Marquette, two great books to read to get
you in the mood for the spookiest day of the year.
I’m taking a bit of a break from events in the fall, but have several coming up as the holidays approach so more updates next month. In the meantime, there are some great books in this month’s Superior Book Productions newsletter for you to peruse and maybe even have change your life.
So get out the fake vampire teeth, the apple cider, and the Halloween candy, and then curl up with a great book. Enjoy!
This Month’s Great Book Quote:
“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing.”
— Anonymous
Sovrin’s Star by John Reyer Afamasaga is the first book in the new Mississippi Connection Trilogy. It opens with an atmospheric scene set in the Old South just as the Civil War has ended. People are trying to get over the border from Mississippi to Tennessee. Standing in line is a young boy named Sovrin. Immediately, Afamasaga pulls us into Sovrin’s world and makes us forget our own:
“A rope tied around a signpost ran along the ground to the other side of the road, demarcating the land. Men in Confederate gray lined up with their families alongside poor farmers and freedmen in a queue that stretched into the distance. Sovrin wasn’t sure what they were standing in line for. But he sensed that it was in the hope of something better—something of great value, worth the great risk. There was permanency in how they carried possessions with them, and in how antsy the women were as they cradled their young, while the men maintained stoic stone faces. Everyone was determined to get across the rope on the ground.”
At first, nothing seems strange or unusual about Sovrin other than that he is alone. But then when the line moves forward, it becomes clear that he is disabled and has to pivot to push himself forward as he walks.
To read more, visit Sovrin’s Star.
Early in the book, Duane talks about how too many people sarcastically say when asked how they are, that they are “living the dream.” They act like life is a sentence they are serving rather than a gift they can enjoy, and they fail to seek out opportunities to improve their situations and live life on their own terms.
Duane knows the reason that holds most people back is a negative attitude and a failure to believe they can succeed. Rather than focusing on the bad things that happen and using those as our excuses for not moving forward, he suggests: “How about claiming that everything that happens to you is for a great reason—to move you forward and closer and closer to your goal and the person you want to be. Think like W. Clement Stone. Everyone is out to help you and do you good.”
To read more, visit Becoming Your Own Champion.
In Building Your Enduring Fitness, Lisa Teresi Harris has written the book Baby Boomers and everyone from middle-age to centenarians have been waiting for. We all know exercise and nutrition are important, but all the health and fitness books and exercise programs out there seem to be geared toward the 18-40 age bracket. We all want to feel good long after that, but we may forget how important exercise and nutrition are as we age—not so we can look good at the beach like the younger generation wants, but so we can offset muscle loss, brittle bones, disease, and the belly fat that threatens to make us old before our time.
Harris has been a registered dietitian since 1978. As the owner of Enduring Fitness 4U, she provides senior exercise classes and in-home fitness training and nutrition coaching. As a result, she has the knowledge, skills, and positive mindset to help anyone improve his or her health, activity-level, and overall life satisfaction. She’s helped hundreds of people, and now she shares her lifetime of knowledge with her readers in this new book.
To read more, visit Building Your Enduring Fitness.
Barry Wilmeth’s Making Others Rich First provides a fresh take on real estate investing for both new and seasoned investors. Wilmeth, who has been investing in real estate across the United States for many years, knows that real estate investing is not solely about making yourself rich. It’s also about helping others to become wealthy by providing them with quality housing or helping them to buy their first homes, and for those who want even more, it is about helping new investors pursue their own financial dreams for success. I love Wilmeth’s attitude in this book. While some people might view real estate investing as competitive, Wilmeth believes there is plenty for everyone, and we all get more when we help each other. As he states early in the book, “We have an existential sense that our happiness depends on the happiness of others and that there is more happiness in giving than in receiving.”
Making Others Rich First is designed to help the real estate investor starting out with the basics of how to invest, but it is also designed to encourage more seasoned investors to mentor others in the real estate investment business. Each chapter has nuggets of information for both the mentor and the mentee, and while the overall structure benefits the mentee, I think mentors will find much here to give them new ideas about investing.
To read more, visit Making Others Rich First.
In Building Up Without Tearing Down, Chad Ellsworth reveals how important it is to cultivate positive ways of initiating people into our organizations and then helping them become true leaders by cultivating the Heroic Arts.
Ellsworth’s interest in heroic leadership began when he joined a fraternity in college and experienced hazing. He then made a promise to himself that he would work to end hazing in his fraternity; when that did not turn out well, as he shares in these pages, he made a commitment to do so on a larger level. Today, he works to make organizations of all types and levels be aware that we do not help our organizations or the individuals involved in them to become better and stronger when we use techniques that humiliate or lessen the people in them.
After sharing his own personal hazing story in Building Up Without Tearing Down, Ellsworth calls for us all to speak up when we see what is wrong in our organizations and to help cultivate the Heroic Arts in ourselves and in other individuals.
To read more, visit Building Up Without Tearing Down.
Davide Di Giorgio’s new book Being Unapologetic: Empowering You to Become an Influential Speaker and Visionary Leader is a celebration of all things “un.” First and foremost, it celebrates being unapologetic. That means living your life without apologizing for who you are, but being your full, bold, true, unique self. Di Giorgio states early on:
“Somewhere along the way, you were encouraged less to be who you are and more to mold to societal norms and expectations. You were asked to be quiet, to act appropriately, and, ultimately, to diminish your light so as not to stick out or be different.
“What a shame. The truth is you are different, and the more you can accept and celebrate that in your difference exists your truth, your purpose, your message, and your miracle, the more you’ll be able to live out your truth and miracle, abundantly.”
Every page that follows is about how to live out one’s truth unapologetically. Di Giorgio fills the pages with stories of how he learned to do so, including accepting that he is gay, not being afraid to pursue his dreams, and teaching others how to do the same.
To read more, visit Being Unapologetic.
