Almost wordless: Mr. Tree Swallow is keeping watch near his nest. If you look closely you can see the female sitting in the doorway of the nestbox.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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A Rapid Review
A Graphic Guide to Business Success
Publisher: DK Publishing | 352 pages | April 2015
Format: Hardcover | Rating: 5 stars
Understand the sometimes-confusing business world with How Business Works, a user-friendly guide to understanding business jargon and corporate structure. Whether you’re looking to get ahead at work, want to start your own business, or just want to understand the business world better, How Business Works is a comprehensive guide that makes even difficult business concepts easy to understand.
DK has designed a basic business book that is both interesting and fun to read. This is the exact opposite of the boring text books that I remember from my business classes.
Business principles are broken down into an easy to understand format using charts, illustrations, infographics, and concise explanations. Pages are filled with interesting facts and statistics which are arranged in side bars, boxes, and headings. Every page is in full-color and brightly illustrated. This format makes it much easier to grasp a concept and is perfect for the visual learner.
The book is divided into four main sections—a general overview of how companies work, finance, sales and marketing, and operations and production—along with many subsections plus a handy index at the end for easy reference.
Whether one is just starting out in the business world, is in need of an easy to understand reference book, or just wants to know more about how things work, this book is a great choice to have on your shelf.
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Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
© 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Welcome to Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia of To Be Continued, a place where readers share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.
After several years of being on tour with different blogs as the monthly host, the Mailbox Monday Blog is now the permanent home for the meme.
Nothing from the mailman last week, but I did receive a few audiobooks. Did you know June is audiobook month? Audiobooks.com is giving away a book a day for the entire month!
Audio Downloads
From Penguin Audio:
Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams
Summer of 1966: Power and yearning collide as a young political wife must face the passions of her past.
The Fixer by Joseph Finder
When Rick Hoffman loses his job and apartment, his only option is to move back into—and renovate—the home of his miserable youth, now empty and in decay since his father’ stroke. But when he starts to pull it apart, he makes an electrifying discovery that will put his life in peril—and change everything he thought he knew about his father.
From Random House Audio:
The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows
Annie Barrows once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town filled with extraordinary characters. Her new novel, The Truth According to Us, brings to life an inquisitive young girl, her beloved aunt, and the alluring visitor who changes the course of their destiny forever.
Invasion of Privacy by Christopher Reich
One woman’s quest to discover the truth behind her husband’s death will pit her against a new generation of cutting-edge surveillance technology and the most dangerous conspiracy in America.
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Still time to enter the giveaway for…
Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis
Girl of My Dreams follows a wide-eyed young screenwriter in the 1930s when Hollywood, the Depression, and the Communist Party intersected powerfully in the American psyche. From the glamorous and mysterious star Palmyra Millevoix to the ruthless studio mogul Mossy Zangwill, protagonist Owen Jant struggles to navigate a world that is as seductive as it is toxic.
Enter on or before June 13th. US addresses only.
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© 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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A Rapid Review
Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch
Publisher: Hogarth | April 2015
Format: Paperback | 387 pages | Rating: 3 stars
When a medical procedure goes horribly wrong and famous actor Ralph Meier winds up dead, Dr. Marc Schlosser needs to come up with some answers. After all, reputation is everything in this business. Personally, he’s not exactly upset Ralph is gone, but as a high-profile doctor to the stars, Marc can’t hide from the truth forever.
Dr. Marc is a disgruntled physician who doesn’t think much of his patients, or the human race in general, and he finds many of them disgusting. He lets them ramble on and barely pays attention, mentally blaming them for their ailments and repulsed by their bodies. They go to him because they think he empathizes with them and also because he will write them any prescription they want. His ethics are questionable at best.
Right from the very first chapter Dr. Marc is a dislikeable character. I don’t have to like a character to enjoy a book, but I need to at least find them interesting or engaging, and Marc’s crudeness put me off from the start. It wasn’t until the end that I could even find anything to empathize with and even then, he was still disgusting. And I suppose that was the point.
The book was too slow-moving for me. It wasn’t until the halfway point that the plot even begins to get interesting. And after investing that much time in the book, I needed to know how it ended. Readers that don’t mind a totally unreliable narrator and completely disgusting characters (Marc wasn’t the only repulsive one) might enjoy this more than I did.
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Source: Review copy provided by Goodreads First Reads.
© 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis
Today I have a special feature and the opportunity for one of my readers to win a copy of the just released debut novel Girl of My Dreams by Peter Davis; a sweeping novel of the 1930s that captures the essence of a golden, lurid era when Hollywood became the fantasy capital of the world.
About the Book
Girl of My Dreams
by Peter Davis
Publisher: Open Road
Publication Date: May 2015
Format: Paperback | 482 pages
Girl of My Dreams follows a wide-eyed young screenwriter in the 1930s when Hollywood, the Depression, and the Communist Party intersected powerfully in the American psyche. From the glamorous and mysterious star Palmyra Millevoix to the ruthless studio mogul Mossy Zangwill, protagonist Owen Jant struggles to navigate a world that is as seductive as it is toxic. Filled with scandal, romance, murder, riots, and celebrities of the day, Girl of My Dreams shines a spotlight on an American moment in all its magic and malice, glory and greed.
About the Author
Peter Davis is an author and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker (Hearts and Minds). The son of screenwriters, he grew up in Los Angeles. Girl of My Dreams is his fourth book and first novel.
Connect with Peter
Giveaway Information
Courtesy of the publicist, I have one copy of Girl of My Dreams to give away to a reader with a mailing address in the continental US. To enter, fill out the form below on or before midnight, Saturday, June 13th. For an extra entry, tweet or blog about the giveaway. The winner will be contacted by email and have 48 hours to respond.
[Giveaway has ended]
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© 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
Source: Giveaway provided by Tandem Literary.
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Almost wordless: The huge Spirea bush in my backyard is putting on a show again this spring.
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More Wordless Wednesday. © 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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A Rapid Review
Fishbowl by Bradley Somer
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press | August 2015
Format: Hardcover | 304 Pages | Rating: 5 stars
Sometimes taking a risk is the only way to move forward with our lives. As Ian the goldfish knows, “An entire life devoted to a fishbowl will make one die an old fish with not one adventure had.”
As Ian the goldfish tumbles from his bowl on the balcony of the twenty-seventh floor and heads toward the ground below, he glimpses the sky, the pavement, and a snippet of the lives of the residents of the apartment building (the Seville) from which he is plunging.
But the story doesn’t begin with Ian falling—that doesn’t happen until a bit later. The story begins a half hour earlier with Katie who stops by the Seville to visit her boyfriend, Connor, who lives on the 27th floor. Unfortunately the elevator is broken and she must use the stairs. Meanwhile Conner is hurrying to clean up his messy apartment and get Faye out of his bed and the building without being seen and sends her down the stairs. At the same time Garth the construction worker is arriving home from work with a secret package; Petunia Delilah goes into premature labor in her apartment and her phone battery is dead; Claire, who fears leaving her apartment, loses her phone-sex job; and home-schooled Herman teleports his way through the building.
All-the-while Ian is tumbling from the twenty-seventh floor. We mark his progress with a little illustration of a goldfish on each page falling closer and closer to the bottom. If you fan through the pages like a flip-book, you can watch him fall.
This is a unique, quirky tale with well-developed, likable characters (even the cheating Connor has his good moments), and a clever writing style. Short, fast-paced chapters each begin with a fun and equally clever title. Chapters are written in alternating perspective of each of the residents with their stories overlaping to link together to form a larger picture of life in the apartment.
This was brilliant, different, and enjoyable. One of the most entertaining books I’ve read this year.
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Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
© 2015 Under My Apple Tree. All rights reserved.
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