Welcome to Issue 84 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!
Happy End of Summer, Everyone!
Each year, I am always hopeful that like in one of my favorite fictional places, Camelot, “the summer lingers through September.” Depending on where you live, it’s not too late to find some great books for a beach read or an afternoon in a hammock, or even cuddling up before a fire as fall approaches.
This month, as always, we have some great books that range from business topics and spirituality to politics, prosperity, and history. I hope you will enjoy them.
And next time, I’ll make an announcement about my newest book, due out in November.
Tyler Tichelaar
This Month’s Great Book Quote:
“Never put off until tomorrow the book you can read today.”
— Author Unknown
Anyone who pays attention to global issues knows that Brazil, the world’s largest country physically, and by population eighth largest, has been in a financial crisis for several years. Most Americans, however, do not understand what is at the heart of that crisis, or how recent developments, including the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro, have affected it.
In writing Brazil in Crisis: The Joy and Pathos of a Nation, Marianne Campagna set out to explore what has resulted in Brazil’s current crisis. Growing up near Rio de Janeiro, Campagna came to love the customs, culture, and people of Brazil. While Campagna today lives in the United States, her heart bleeds to see the increase in crime and corruption in this land that is also so full of joy, laughter, and rich cultural traditions.
Campagna’s primary focus in this book is to explain the 2018 presidential election in Brazil for readers outside the country so they can understand Brazil’s political process and all the factors that came into play to elect Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president. To fully understand the election, Campagna argues that you must understand Brazil, and so she takes readers on a cultural journey through Brazil, its past and present.
To read more, visit Brazil in Crisis.
Jason Cutter’s new book Selling with Authentic Persuasion reveals that not everyone is cut out to be a salesperson, but often people who struggle as salespeople just don’t realize they are acting like order takers rather than salespeople. In these pages, Jason Cutter, who has years of experience managing call centers, leading sales teams, and selling himself, walks readers through the process of determining whether you are an order taker or have the potential to become a quota breaker. And then he shows how using authentic persuasion can make almost anyone comfortable with sales.
One of the first issues Cutter tackles is that many people in sales do not succeed because they fear being the pushy salesperson they’ve experienced and vowed never to be like. Another issue is that some people just haven’t learned proper sales techniques or they fear the customer won’t like them if they try to make the sale. In all these cases, Cutter has advice to coach readers through shifting their mindsets away from the fears that keep them in order taker mode to find new levels of success and happiness. By using authentic persuasion—honest, empathetic techniques to help customers and to determine if you can help them, making that transition from order taker to salesperson is much easier.
To read more, visit Selling with Authentic Persuasion.
The Mr. X Interviews, Volume 2 by Luke Gromen continues the US and world economic analysis begun in the first volume of interviews with Mr. X. Luke recounts his meetings with Mr. X, a fictional US sovereign creditor, invented for the purpose of creating a dialogue about the economy and the US’ future. This second volume analyzes in detail the financial issues and events of late 2017 to early 2019. The book’s opening quote, by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, warns readers they are in for an eye-opening revelation: “It’s important to understand many important stories are always hiding in the open.”
The book begins with Luke and Mr. X’s first meeting over dinner. Mr. X opens the conversation by stating that China is no longer an emerging market, but investors are making a grave error by analyzing it as if it still were. Mr. X then launches into a discussion of how China would only be an emerging nation if oil continued to be priced in USDs. However, China is making the move now to price oil in its own currency, the CNY, and forcing other countries to take payments in its currency, which could devalue and weaken the USD. Mr. X is thorough in his discussion, always citing articles and his sources.
To read more, visit The Mr. X Interviews, Volume 2.
John A. Frederick’s new book, Prosperity Now! A 12-Week Journey to the Life of Your Dreams, is a tour-de-force of practical, spiritual, and financial advice on how to achieve the life you’ve always wanted. Drawing upon the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Frederick walks readers through a twelve-week course that teaches them not only how to find prosperity, but how to eliminate all the things blocking them from achieving it.
Early in the book, Frederick clarifies that true prosperity involves more than just money. To focus solely on finances is to cheat yourself from all the good the Universe has in store for you and that you deserve. To begin the journey to prosperity, Frederick asks readers to make a contract with themselves and God to follow the steps of this Prosperity Now! journey. He then defines true prosperity and asks the reader to be willing to surrender to the good in store for them. Step One of AA is modified here as: “We admitted we were powerless over our old consciousness of lack and limitation and our lives had become unmanageable.” In other words, too often we have failed to be prosperous because we have not believed it possible.
To read more, visit Prosperity Now!
David J. Wallace’s new book The Journey of Our Souls: What You Can Learn from One Man’s Multiple Near-Death Experiences is the kind of book that blows your socks off and makes you reconnect to your own spirituality in new and surprising ways. Wallace is a native Hawaiian who shares in these pages his life story growing up in Hawaii and how Hawaiian culture and religious beliefs influenced his journey to becoming a “kahu”—a spiritual leader and healer—among his people. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, he was often taught to repress his natural gifts and his people’s ancient spiritual beliefs. Raised as a Mormon, however, he also grew up in a culture where people sometimes didn’t always see much difference or conflict between what Mormonism taught and the beliefs of their Hawaiian ancestors.
Wallace’s journey got off to a rocky start when, as a five-year-old, he fell out of the backseat of a moving car and had a near-death experience. He was taken by an ancestor to a waiting place to determine whether he would be moving on into the afterlife or returning to earth. Thankfully, he returned to this life, though he would end up having three more near-death experiences.
To read more, visit The Journey of Our Souls.
The late Wilson Hurley (1924-2008) was one of the great American painters of the twentieth century. His breathtaking paintings of the American West are so fine and detailed that you often feel like you are looking at a photograph. The Life and Art of Wilson Hurley is a mammoth treasure of a book, featuring countless paintings by Hurley. The text, written by his wife Rosalyn Hurley, tells not only Wilson Hurley’s life story and the success and obstacles of his career, but it gives extensive insight into his theories about art and the advice he gave to many who came to him for help and inspiration.
Hurley’s visions for his works and the processes he undertook to achieve them are detailed and range from plein air field studies to finished studio paintings, including a commission that resulted in five monumental triptychs of our nation’s most prized vistas installed at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Throughout the book, Hurley’s personality shines through so that not only do you get to understand the artist, but you get to know the real man behind his paintings.
To read more, visit The Life and Art of Wilson Hurley.
