I received a copy of Penelope Trunk's latest book last week. 999 other people did as well. It's a sold-out, limited edition. I'd tell you the book's name, but from cover to cover, it's nowhere to be found*.
This isn't a formal review. It's more of a "I can hardly wait to write something about this book because I like it so much even though I've only read half way through it," kinda thing.
Quick little story first.
I ordered this book March 18. I hadn't received it by the beginning of April so I wrote a note to Penelope. She said it was one of those "order printing after all book orders came in," kinda deal. I should get the book in six weeks. A week later Penelope sent out a global e-mail to those who ordered the book. She said book to arrive in mid May, she would then sign them and ship them out. Towards the end of June Penelope sent out another e-mail letting us know the books arrived. We'd receive them as soon as they were signed.
Perhaps this process could have been handled differently, although Penelope's hands were tied because they were dealing with a printer in China. But it doesn't matter one bit to me. From the first time I read Penelope's stuff in the late 90's I've been totally smitten with her, with her learn-from-experience demeanor, with her honesty, with her passion and desire to help Gen-Y, with her tell-you-what's-real style and with her writing ability. Add in the street cred that she's developed with Brazen Careerist and it's a no-brainer. No problemo.
Conduct yourself in a manner that pleases your market, audience or reader and when that inevitable bump in the road comes, it isn't a problem.
The driving force behind the book is that Penelope wants to help her associate, Melissa, keep her career on track. So Penelope digs into her Library of Congress-sized archive of articles and finds those that will be of use to Melissa. Place those articles in a well designed book of gold-lined pages that is aesthetically appealing and pleasing to touch and you have a most excellent career / life guide.
Actually, this is total value for me. I could try to take the time to peruse Penelope's site and assemble similar articles. But by the time it would take me to do it, I still wouldn't nail down all the articles of help and I wouldn't have them all neatly assembled in a book that stands out from three hundred or so others that I keep at arm's length from my writing chair. Not to mention it's a limited edition. One that's numbered and personally signed.
One of the things I love about this book is that it has plenty of white space - plenty of room to journal and write notes.
More to come on Penelope's new book...
*Penelope explains about the book's title in this post.
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