Welcome to Issue 83 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!
Hello, Everyone!
It’s summer—time to get away and read some great books at the beach, in a hammock, on your deck, in the comfort of air-conditioning, or wherever you choose. This month’s books provide humor and escapism from life’s troubles—and we all need some of that these days—while others focus on issues that have been making headlines lately from economic woes and diversity issues to parenting skills and losing loved ones. Each book has a phenomenal message and a great perspective on life so I invite you to investigate them all.
Due to the pandemic, I will not be doing any events this summer, but I invite you to visit my website www.MarquetteFiction.com if you want to check out my books. Ebook versions can be found at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And I’ll have a new book out in November. More about that in upcoming newsletters.
Be well.
Tyler Tichelaar
This Month’s Great Book Quote:
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;
they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
— Charles W. Eliot
Hucksterville opens when Max Foreskin, the CEO of Tight Fit Athletics, ends up having his ad agency quit because its employees can’t stand him anymore. Rather than hire a new agency, Max decides to build his own in-house agency. He has no idea how to do that, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a task for those who work under him to figure out. Soon a former madam turned employment agency owner is assembling a team of creatives for Max so he can take Tight Fit Athletics’ advertising to a new level. Not that she cares anything about Tight Fit Athletics. She just wants the commission for assembling the team, and as long as she finds some warm bodies, whether they are good or not, she’ll get what she wants.
Because Max Foreskin is completely unreasonable, he provides an extremely tight deadline for when his agency needs to be up and running, so out of desperation, creatives are recruited from groups of people equally desperate for work, including from among the homeless.
To read more, visit Hucksterville.
In Spending Your Way to Wealth: Setting Your Compass Course to Steer in the Direction of True Wealth, Paul Heys separates myths and untruisms about investing from facts and practical strategies that will help you learn how to save, spend, and invest wisely. Not since the Great Depression has such knowledge been so necessary as we continue to face the financial turmoil caused by the recent coronavirus pandemic.
Heys begins by meeting readers where they are. He explains that the actions people are likely to want to take when investing are normal, and he explores the psychology behind why we make those decisions. As he shows, nothing is wrong with being normal, but we want to get to “normal plus” by learning to restrain ourselves to prevent the consequences normal behavior could cause. He uses the metaphor of Ulysses and the Sirens to describe our own need for restraint. Ulysses had his men tie him to the ship’s mast when they sailed past the Sirens so he could hear their beautiful music but resist the temptation to join them, which would have resulted in his destruction. Similarly, we must tie ourselves to the mast when we invest by restraining ourselves from knee-jerk, short-term decisions that will be detrimental to our long-term goals.
To read more, visit Spending Your Way to Wealth.
Nicholas Strand’s new book Loving Someone Who Is Dying: Choose Your Attitude, Create Your Life, documents the life story of his wife Brianna, their relationship, and most importantly, her courage as she spent her life learning to live with cystic fibrosis (CF) and not let it control her life. This book will show you that even in the face of all odds, you can have a positive outlook on life, enrich the world for those around you, and leave a legacy that will continue to inspire others.
It is hard to describe Brianna in just a few words. She had so many levels and strengths. However, her husband, Nick, captures her well when he explains what led to the photo of Brianna on the book’s front cover:
“Her beauty was what drew most people’s attention. But her power was visible, politely letting her beauty take center stage. What you don’t see was her 101-degree temperature, or her removing the needle and setting her IV aside so she could jump into her wedding dress and let her beauty radiate. Yet she did it with ease, without any sign that she was in a constant war to keep her body alive.”
To read more, visit Loving Someone Who Is Dying.
It is time for parents to think outside the box, and Joanne Holbrook’s Your Passport to Parenting is just the ticket to a whole new world of advice and wisdom about raising children to be secure, happy, confident adults.
Joanne has lived around the world, in South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Germany, as well as visited numerous countries and had friends of many ethnicities. More importantly, she’s a mom of two. She has blended those experiences into creating this book, one of the most original, practical, and helpful parenting books in years.
Joanne’s mission as a parent was determined when one of her best friends who didn’t have children said to her, “Why would anyone want kids? All parents do is complain about having them?” Joanne was stunned but soon realized it was common for parents to say things like, “I need a bottle of wine at night,” or “I just want to hide from them for a few hours.” She knew these comments were made when parents felt overwhelmed, but that they still loved their children immensely. Still, she decided something wasn’t right if a parent wasn’t having as much fun parenting as their kids were having being children.
To read more, visit Your Passport to Parenting.
Dennis Galloway’s new novel, The Pen, is an entertaining mix of fantasy, adventure, humor, romance, and life-changing principles that any reader can apply to improve their lives.
The story begins in 1920 Edinburgh, Scotland, and it has all the magic and mystery associated with the works of other authors who wrote in that time period like Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells. It tells the story of young Harold Duncan, who works as a clerk at a firm where he feels like he is not appreciated and his superiors do not regard him well enough to give him any opportunity to advance. Because reality is so boring for him, Harold has escaped into imaginary worlds of writing stories.
One day, Harold feels called to visit an antique store to add to his collection of vintage pens, which he enjoys writing with. However, he little expects to find the unusual and beautiful pen that this particular antique store provides. The pen is expensive, but Harold must have it, and after quickly paying for it, he rushes home to try it out on a new story.
To read more, visit The Pen.
Seconde Nimenya’s new book Unlocking Diversity: How to Create Inclusive Cultures in a World of Differences is a book badly needed and long overdue, especially in the wake of the protests that have rocked the world following George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020.
Racism remains a major problem in the United States and around the world. In this new book, Seconde Nimenya offers practical advice and fresh insights for how we can live in harmony with one another, learn to appreciate and celebrate our differences, and create a better world for all. As an immigrant first to Canada and then the United States from the East-African nation of Burundi, Seconde provides fresh perspectives about race and racism, and the benefits of creating inclusive workplaces and communities.
At the heart of this book is the need to listen to one another’s diverse stories and the need for all groups to take responsibility and work together to create a world in which we can all live together. Seconde does not point fingers but simply explains that everyone needs to be responsible for themselves and their efforts in developing an inclusive culture.
To read more, visit Unlocking Diversity.