Book Reviews: dave Style

I want your words to take a voyage.  I want them to travel from your mind to your heart to your soul.  I want them to collect pieces of each.  Then I want them to leap from your pages and grab hold of my soul.  Cause when they do, my fingers will smoke about my keyboard hoping to reach out to the world and sing your praise.

I had been writing book reviews in my own little way since 2001, when a very scholarly fellow once said, "dave, you don't get very deep.  You're kind of like a cheerleader."  Okay.  So a few years go by when Rosa Say first asks the Ho'ohana Community to write a book review at Talking Story.  Brendon Connelly penned a book review of Lisa Haneberg's High Impact Middle Management, that gives grist for Webster's definition and illustrates with clarity the art of the proper book review.  Brendon's articulation would have caused my friend of the cheerleader remark to become stuck on the merry-go-round in ponder.  Though Mr. Connelly's work deserves to be in a book review hall of fame, I can't write like that.

To begin with, I am not too keen on being critical.  A book and its writer must resonate with me for me to review it.  If it does, I want to help the author, not be critical.  I think readers need to know in general what the book is about, but not in Cliff Note.  I am more interested in trying to interpret my feelings and how the author touches me.  I'm pretty sure that when I do like the author, I can hardly not be a cheerleader for her. 

Now I'd like to reveal a little dave character flaw.  I am selfish. 

I am sure that I've babbled about it here a half dozen times over the years but one of the greatest and most memorable feelings that I have ever experienced came upon the heels of a book review.  A week after writing the review, the author sold fifteen books and had leads for twenty-five more (the books cost 130 bucks).  The appreciation in his voice brought me to tears ( dave doesn't cry).

Well, that's about the extent of a dave-style book review, not deep, not critical, just hoping to make a connection with the author and tell a few friends about it.

Comments

[Nick McCormick]

I like your style, Dave. Keep up the good work.

[dave]

Thanks Nick! Hope Lead Well and Prosper is doing well!