How Starbucks Saved My Life-Michael Gates Gill

He was out of work, at the age of sixties. Out of what he had been doing for almost 30 years. He was kicked out from an advertisement company, because of some factors, namely age. The young managers decided that his idea are becoming old fashioned and all. 

But he has gained a lot of business contacts, and he opened a consulting company which could last only for few years. He's had a family to feed and in the meantime, in his "downtime" he settled in a short fling which added in a new son to the family. His wife decided to leave him.

Soon, his consulting company closed down but he still acted as though he was still a busy man always in contact with his client, wearing the suit, carrying a briefcase as he used to do. 

Until one day when he was having his hardly earned latte in Starbucks, a lady manager asked him if he would like to work in a Starbucks cafe. He was speechless, how could a young lady could detect his acting. So without much thinking he applied for the job. 

Soon his life changed. This book is a true story of Michael Gates Gill. How he had made comparison on his working behaviour pre-Starbucks and during Starbucks.There are a lot of things that he should do to adapt to the new environment, a change of life style indeed. 

How he gained a lot of respect by being just a coffee shop worker, rather than what he'd got when acting as a manager in a big company. He had reviewed on how he had wasted his life, with his daughters and sons because he had put the career on the top of his priority list before.

It was a moving story. It's not boring at all albeit it's an (sort of)  autobiography book. 

:)

The Little Prince / Le Petit Prince

I never imagined in a million years that a whimsical child’s fable could make me feel so downhearted. I can understand why this book was listed as one of the greatest classic. To a child, the fantasy about having a fren from outer-space is so appealing – this book has been used for elementary literature all over the world (err… except M’sia which I don’t quite understand why :p) and to an adult like me, the depth within the simplicity of the story is what captivated me the most.

This is a story about a strange encounter, self-narrated by an aviator, whose plane crashes in the middle of the desert. While stranded there, attempting to fix his plane, he stumbled upon a fine-looking, small prince who claimed to be originally from Asteroid B 612 – a planet no bigger than a house.

Slowly, the aviator learned about the simple life of this little prince whose daily routines involved uprooting the baobabs & sweeping up his 3 volcanoes, how he loves watching sunset whenever he’s sad, and most of all how intensely in love he is with the one and only flower in his planet - the rose.

As the story unfolds, the little prince shared the story of his journey, all the memorable encounters he had with adults from other asteroid and finally how he landed on earth. The main theme of this story is how simple life can be if we see it thru the eye of a child and how we tend to complicate things as we grow older.

This book is somewhat like Alice in Wonderland - on a surface, it’s simple & appealing enough to be read by a child but if you really try to comprehend the meaning behind it, it’s mind-blowing how deep the message can be. I won’t be a spoiler by giving it all out to you, you should read it yourself coz you might have a different interpretation of the story as compared to mine. 

But all I can tell you is, be prepared, you might need a tissue as this story has a bittersweet ending. And you’ll be surprised to learn how a simple tale like this can teach you a lot about life.

My fave quotes from this book: "One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye" (On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux).

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

if you are trying to figure out what makes you happy, or if there is anything that you should consider in order to make a better life, perhaps knowing the Power of Now would help you grasp the idea of enjoying the now.

the book, frankly is not exactly an easy read. there are parts that would make you ponder hard, parts that would make you feel defensive, parts that would make you hopeless of what you are now. but then again, Mr Tolle writes so much truth in it, you would definitely be thinking, the man seriously has a point. and he must be right 'coz what he said was what happened to me.

this book deserves to be revisited again and again, coz in life we experience different thing at a different time. and this book is better understood maybe in a different way at a different time.

i must say, i love this book. it's an eye opener. it's thought-provoking. it demands a full attention from its reader. i dare you to read it. :)

love from brussels.

The Carrie Diaries - Candace Bushnell

I bought it for RM19.90 instead of RM89.90 at BookXcess, Amcorp Mall, PJ.

Basically it's about the life of Carrie Bradshaw pre Sex and The City. It's a teenage life. How she deals with her family, friends, boyfriends and enemies. It's high school. It's practically ala Glee where there's a popular group and the unpopular one.

Carrie kept her life in the middle, not so low, not so high until she met her childhood friend, who had transferred into a cute guy and apparently became the school heartthrob.  He had been her boyfriend then. Usual things, Carrie got stuck up with so many friends' drama and anything, plus a discipline and full of explanation father, a troublesome sister, but lucky she's got one sister who always been the understanding one.

It's an okay book. But as I am so into the series of course I like this book. :)

I like the ending most, however.

for more : here.

credit picture.

For one more day-Mitch Albom

I've found this in my friendster's blog.  Link asal. 

Macam biasa, karya Mitch Albom, sangat menekankan kasih sayang dan kekeluargaan.

Cerita ni berkisah mengenai Charley Chick Benetto…once a baseballer yang sangat menyerlah semasa zaman muda dia. Disebabkan minat dalam sukan baseball yang sangat mendalam, Chick sanggup berhenti belajar dan mengikut nasihat ayah dia dengan menyertai team pro untuk bermain dalam some sort of sport liga.

Selepas berhenti sebagai baseballer, Chick bekerja sebagai sales oficer..yang memang tidak kena dengan jiwa dia. Success was not always on his side, Chick rasa tertekan, started drinking…dan mula mengabaikan keluarganya…

Wife Chick meninggalkannya dan Chick semakin tertampar bila his only daughter, Maria, tidak menjemput beliau ke majlis perkahwinannya.

Chick mengambil keputusan untuk take his own life (bunuh diri)…dan dia mengambil keputusan untuk kembali ke Pepperville Beach (his hometown) because he decided to end his life where he started it.

He’s got into an accident, but when he woke up to escape to his home, he was shocked to see that his mother, who died 8 years earlier, was there. So many things happened from the time he reached his home that night, most of them was priceless moment with his mother.

These moment made Chick realized that there’s so much more to life, and there’s never too late to fix relationship with the families. Chick got to know many things about his father (who left the family when he’s about 9-11 years old).

Chick later woke up to find that he’s lying on the road (accident’s site) and he recovered to enjoy and to redeem his life, his time with families.

It was a good reading. Mitch Albom… 

Tuesday With Morrie

I believe you guys have heard or read about this book. Well, I just finished reading it, in Malay version. I read the original version while I was waiting for my friend at Border, The Curve some time ago. Hah.

This book was actually a thesis, done by Mitch and his beloved Prof. Morrie.  His lecturer while he was doing his degree. It was a book/thesis discussing about life and what are important things about it. 

Mitch called him Coach, that was something to distinguish him from Morrie's other students, and while he was studying at the University (Brandies) he had always find time to spend with Morrie, to talk and discuss about everything. It was his way of escapism from the life which he thought boring. He thought when he's with Morrie, he was himself. 

It was 16 years after the convocation that he found out from a tv show that Morrie was sick. He started to keep in touch with Morrie and then the idea of doing the thesis came. They started to reminisce their old days, and started to discuss like they used to do.  

Mitch, while sharing Morrie's thoughts on life, couldn't help but thinking about  how he had spent his life. 

Mitch came out with 13 ideas of topics to be discussed with Morrie and they met on Tuesdays to discuss everything on each topics.

This book was divided into few chapters each with a short and simple story, with pieces of Morrie's story from his life in between.

The way Morrie saw life was unique. He was positive and he brought love with him and shared with everyone around him. You'll feel the love when you read this, I bet. :)

I cried. Hehe. It was moving. Love it.


p.s : good for pressie. here. here. here.  

Veronika Decides to Die

Initially I was quite reluctant to share this book with just anybody else as this book is so personal to me. But then again, the story is too good to be hogged alone so, here I am :) This book was introduced by a fren of mine who claimed that this story reminded her so much of me. And the fact that Veronika Decides to Die was also my first Coelho’s book,  I just have to confess -  I’ve read this book so many times before until I’ve lost count ;p

This book talks about life and sanity, what it feels like being the ‘mad ones’.  Coelho’s interpretation of madness was spot-on lucid given that he himself has been admitted to the institution for 3 times when he was younger. So, he’s the most perfect figure to talk about this issue.

Okay, so the story revolves around a girl from a small town who seems to have everything figured out. She got a job, her own place, boyfriend, you name it. But just because she felt that she knows how & where her life is heading to (like few years down the road she’ll be married & then became a mother, she’ll stay at home & devote herself solely to her family bla bla bla…) she decided that it’s pointless to go on living since everything is so predictable. So on one fine day, Veronika decided to kill herself.  

Allow me to digress a little, FYI it is common for most ppl who resort in to suicide to perceive suicide as the only way of having control over their life when everything else falls apart. What so cynical about Veronika’s story is, she has the control over all elements of her life but she bravely decided to change the course of her life coz she thought it was too conventional.

But the twist to this story is, she survived her suicide attempt only to find out that she got only another 2 weeks to live (due to heart damaged caused by the overdose of sleeping drugs). She woke up in an institution called The Villete where she met a few significant characters – Zedka, who suffered from major depression, Mari who suffered from severe paranoia / anxiety disorder and Eduard the schizophrenic.

Learning the fact that she’s dying somehow gave her another reason to live life as she felt the helplessness of not having control over her predicted demise. And being among the mad ones has given her the freedom to do or say whatever she wants because there will be no more fear of being judge as well as the fact that she got nothing else to lose. For the first time in her life, Veronika wanted to live her life to the fullest.

If I were to describe this story in a nutshell, I’d say it’s story about the fear of losing control, losing yourself in life & relationship as you grew older, and the more you feel like you’re losing it, the harder you struggle to liberate yourself.

But that’s not just it, there is another twist at the end of the story, which is so mind-blowing btw, and I just gotta say this, Coelho has the most amazing talent in crafting the perfect ending for all his stories. So, watch out as I’ll do more reviews on Coelho’s other masterpieces.