Reading is easy when you have 4 eyes!!

January 1, 2009 came along and I still haven't secured a New Years resolution.  For as long as I can remember, my resolutions have been like my birthday wishes, you do it because everyone else is but you don't expect anything to come of it.  That is of course till I came up with a fairly easy resolution to keep up with in 2009, reading.  I hated reading from elementary school through to college (as well as most other kids).  But to my surprise, it comes a lot easier when your not forced to read something you don't want to.  

So far I have completed 3 books in 2009 which doesn't seem like a lot to the average Joe, but is a lot for someone who hasn't completed a book in the last 2 years.  The books I have completed are:

• Little Teal Book of Trust: How to Earn it, Grow it, and Keep it to Become a Trusted Advisor in Sales, Business & Life     By Jeffrey Gitomer
• I Hate Your Guts     By Jim Norton
• Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid     By Denis Leary 
  

It comes to no surprise to me that 2 of the 3 books I've read are books authored by comedians.  Jim Norton happens to be one of my favorite comedians.  When I started listening to Opie & Anthony in the mornings going to school (at the time) and work, Jim Norton was the third leg in the show.  O&A made it their jobs to have on comedians all the time to help promote their gigs, and Norton ended up staying on full-time.  This gave him the platform he needed to promote his book.  

In I Hate Your Guts, he touches upon a lot of the issues that effect people from all walks of life.  The one chapter I couldn't wait to read was titled, Yankee Announcer John Sterling Should Be Arrested for Auditory Rape.  I've been telling the story for years about Sterling and every time I think about it, it makes me sick.  I was driving home from night class when I was listening to a Yankee playoff game.  Its bad enough I had to listen to Sterling, but Suzyn Waldman was blabbering her big mouth along with him.  Anyway, I was down the road from my house when Sterling starts his pre home-run rant.  "...and that's a well hit ball, to DEEEEEEEP left center, it is high, looks like it's got the legs, and its caught in the beginning of the warning track... that makes 2 outs here...(initiate Sterling and Suzyn sigh sequence)".  When I entered my house, it was just in time for the end of the inning where they show a highlight that had previously happened.  That ball looked like it was hit off a tee by Hillary Clinton.  Im surprised it even went that far and to think that Sterling had a feeling it was going to be a home-run?  You can say I was a little more then just happy to see Norton bash this guy for a few pages.  

Sorry for the story there, let me get back to the book.  He talks about idiots with media platforms like Al Roker, Dr. Phil, Jesse Jackson and Steve Martin to name a few.  If you don't mind some vulgar language and enjoy laughing as your reading, then I highly suggest this book.  It was my first book of the new year, and I'm glad I started with it.

The second book I read was the Little Teal Book of Trust.  This is the second book I've read by Jeffrey Gitomer, even though I own 4.  His books are so easy to read and are jam-packed with so much information.  I really think self-help or self-guided (don't know if there is a difference) books get a bad rap sometimes.  This book really just challenges you to step back and evaluate your life.  Are you Trusting?  Do others Trust you?  Do you work for a company who trust you or visa versa?  There are some parts of this book that didn't apply to me as it might not apply to you.  But like all other works of art, you can naturally substitute your life situation and see if it works.  

The last book I've read is Why We Suck.  I like Denis Leary and I think he is a great actor even though he was in some really big bombshells for movies.  I'm just not ready to jump on his book-bandwagon.  I don't doubt his writing skills by any means.  A lot of the content in this book is funny.  He has great stories about his family, run-ins with bullies, and my favorite, hatred towards cats.  The thing he lacks in his book is structure.  I feel like he goes off on tangents about miscellaneous subjects in the middle of talking about something totally different.  It makes for interesting work because it seems as though he is writing as if he was speaking off the top of his head, but very hard for the reader to pick up on and stay with.  However, if you are of Irish decent, I recommend this book to you.  There is a lot of Irish family stories you might relate to, or even understand more then I did for the most part.  

In Festy We Trust