In My TBR Stack:

Free and Clear: 7 Steps to Declutter Your Home and Your Head
by Karin Kiser
Camino Chronicles Press
Trade Paperback


Have you ever spring cleaned your house, or donated some of your unwanted stuff to charity? That’s decluttering. 

The problem is, if you’re like most people, you’ve probably accumulated plenty of new stuff since your last closet purging or trip to the donation center. You’re not alone.

The U.S. Department of Energy revealed that more than 25% of households with two-car garages have too much stuff to fit their cars inside them!

The truth is, your stuff isn’t the problem. It’s not even your fault. You’ve simply picked up the habit of re-cluttering.

Free and Clear will help you break the re-cluttering habit, and finally be free of the anxiety and exasperation that excess physical clutter can provoke. 

If you are looking for the perfect method for folding your shirts or rearranging your stuff, this book is probably not for you. It won’t help you rearrange your current stuff in a new way. Moving stuff around doesn’t get to the real issue of why you accumulated all that stuff in the first place. 

This book does.

Using the 7-step Free and Clear system, you’ll discover..
•Why you wear the same 20% of your wardrobe over and over 
•How to declutter your closet, kitchen, living spaces – and even your mind
•How to capture a renewed sense of freedom, appreciation, and ease with your physical stuff 
•The secret to breaking the re-cluttering habit once and for all 

Inside Free and Clear you’ll also discover how to create some much-needed space in your home and your head, so you can have more of what you really want in life.

So if you’re ready to finally get to the root cause of your clutter, and become free and clear, you must get this book now. 

Get the simple, actionable approach to decluttering your home and your head, creating more time, space, and happiness in your life. It’s all revealed inside Free and Clear, book two in the Dare To Be AwareTM series. 

Don’t let another day go by with excess stuff you don’t need and rarely use. Take control and follow the simple 7-step system to finally be free and clear. 

In My TBR Stack:

Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat — Strategies for Solving the Real Parenting Problems
by Naomi Schaefer Riley
Templeton Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Toddlers on tablets. Pre-teens on Tumblr. Thanks to a variety of factors—from tech companies hungry for new audiences, to school administrations bent on making education digital, to a culture that promotes everyone as the star of their own reality shows—technology is irrevocably a part of childhood, and parents are struggling to keep up. What should be allowed? What should be denied? And, given the ubiquity of technology and its inherent usefulness, what do sensible boundaries even look like?

A noted columnist and mother of three, Naomi Schaefer Riley fully understands the seductive nature of screens. For example, an after­noon of finger painting equals enormous cleanup of both house and hands. But an afternoon of iPad games? Just a swipe and a charger. Or what about car rides around town? Always having toys and books on hand isn’t a given, but your game-loaded smart phone is.

Riley draws us into her story and then walks us through the research on technology’s encroachment into each stage of childhood. She then offers “tough mommy tips”: realistic, practical, applicable advice for parents who recognize that unlimited technology access is a problem, but who don’t know where to start in taking back control. These tips cover everything from placating an antsy toddler at your local favorite restaurant to best practices for keeping your teens safe from unsavory sites.

Any parent knows the effects of screens on their distracted, cranky, sedentary, and incessantly anxious-about-what-might-be-going-on-without-them kids. Naomi Schaefer Riley brings her experience, research, and no-nonsense candor to help parents prevent the children from falling under the destructive spell of technology.

In My TBR Stack:

Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean
by Jonathan White
Trinity University Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

In Tides, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes readers across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a twenty-five-foot tidal bore that crashes eighty miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation; and in Panama and Venice, he delves into how the threat of sea level rise is changing human culture—the very old and very new. Tides combines lyrical prose, colorful adventure travel, and provocative scientific inquiry into the elemental, mysterious paradox that keeps our planet’s waters in constant motion. Scientific figures, line drawings, black and white photography throughout, and a color photo insert dramatically illustrate this engaging, expert tour of the tides.

In My TBR Stack:

Up On Game: From Robbing Banks to Stacking Bitcoin
by Richard Stanley
Melrose & Main Publishing
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

"Put the money on the counter"

The bank robber known on his wanted  posters as the Skinny Bandit, a street kid from the side of the river in South San Diego known as Otay — a rough Hispanic neighborhood — grew up running game from petty shoplifting to grand theft auto and brazenly robbing banks.

This is the inside story of Richard Stanley's neighborhood struggle with gangs and chronicles his life and crimes (and redemption). A whiter-than-cocaine kid, Stanley did the crimes and did the time.

Today, he's up on game as a legit entrepreneur and shares a vital message: people do change.

On My Radar:

The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin andHhis Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West
by Malcolm Nance
Hachette Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

In the greatest intelligence operation in the history of the world, Donald Trump was made President of the United States with the assistance of a foreign power. For the first time, The Plot to Destroy Democracy reveals the dramatic story of how blackmail, espionage, assassination, and psychological warfare were used by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies to steal the 2016 U.S. election–and attempted to bring about the fall of NATO, the European Union, and western democracy. It will show how Russia and its fifth column allies tried to flip the cornerstones of democracy in order to re-engineer the world political order that has kept most of the world free since 1945. 

Career U.S. Intelligence officer Malcolm Nance will examine how Russia has used cyber warfare, political propaganda, and manipulation of our perception of reality–and will do so again–to weaponize American news, traditional media, social media, and the workings of the internet to attack and break apart democratic institutions from within, and what we can expect to come should we fail to stop their next attack.

Nance has utilized top secret Russian-sourced political and hybrid warfare strategy documents to demonstrate the master plan to undermine American institutions that has been in effect from the Cold War to the present day. Based on original research and countless interviews with espionage experts, Nance examines how Putin’s recent hacking accomplished a crucial first step for destabilizing the West for Russia, and why Putin is just the man to do it. 

Nance exposes how Russia has supported the campaigns of right-wing extremists throughout both the U.S. and Europe to leverage an axis of autocracy, and how Putin’s agencies have worked since 2010 to bring fringe candidate Donald Trump into elections.

Revelatory, insightful, and shocking, The Plot To Destroy Democracy puts a professional spy lens on Putin’s plot and unravels it play-by-play. In the end, he provides a better understanding of why Putin’s efforts are a serious threat to our national security and global alliances–in much more than one election–and a blistering indictment of Putin’s puppet, President Donald J. Trump.

In My TBR Stack:

The Duck and the Butterfly: Coaching Questions for Leaders at Work
by Natalie Michael
Trifold
Trade Paperback

BE A BETTER COACH

More than 1000 Coaching Questions For You

An amazing question can transform a life, a team, or a company. If you’re seeking to improve yourself, coach high-potential talent, boost the value of a team meeting, or energize a strategy session, you simply need to ask the right question. And now there’s a resource to help you do exactly that.

After a decade of executive coaching, Natalie Michael has handpicked, developed, and tested more than 1,000 of the most powerful coaching questions, which she shares in The Duck and the Butterfly. Inside, you’ll discover queries to help you lead your life, lead others, lead organizations, and create a positive difference in the world. Throughout the book, you’ll also find ducks (tips on how to be a better listener) and butterflies (tips on how to deliver questions in a transformative way).

This book is more than just coaching questions.

It’s a tool kit for changing lives for the better.

In My TBR Stack:

ten cultures, twenty lives: refugee life stories
by Daina Jurika-Owen
Amaya Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Most people don’t realize everything it takes for refugees to navigate the path to resettlement. A refugee faces years of waiting and countless hurdles before arriving in a strange new land with few possessions and little knowledge of a new community's language and culture.

How did a diverse group of refugees make their way to the US and settle in Abilene, Texas? Who helped them through the resettlement process as they embarked on their new lives?

In Ten Cultures, Twenty Lives, refugee storytellers from a broad swath of cultures—Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Cuba, Iraq, Bhutan, and more—reveal their compelling, sometimes humorous, and often bittersweet tales of resettlement in West Texas. Through their life stories, refugees share their powerful experiences about the long, hard road they took to get to the US.

Ten Cultures, Twenty Lives guides us through their journeys and draws us into the world of refugees and resettlement staff, describing the passion and energy needed to help these courageous storytellers resettle in the US and the challenges they faced.

In My TBR Stack:

I Am Alfonso Jones
by Tony Medina
Illustrated by Stacey Robinson & John Jennings
Foreword by Bryan Stevenson
TU Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

Alfonso Jones can’t wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school’s hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her. But as he is buying his first suit, an off-duty police officer mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun, and he shoots Alfonso.

When Alfonso wakes up in the afterlife, he’s on a ghost train guided by well-known victims of police shootings, who teach him what he needs to know about this subterranean spiritual world. Meanwhile, Alfonso’s family and friends struggle with their grief and seek justice for Alfonso in the streets. As they confront their new realities, both Alfonso and those he loves realize the work that lies ahead in the fight for justice.

In the first graphic novel for young readers to focus on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, as in Hamlet, the dead shall speak—and the living yield even more surprises.

Foreword by Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy

Check out Tony Medina's article in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Journal, Language Arts, titled, "Alfonso Jones Matters." This is a personal narrative detailing Tony's construction of a protagonist for a graphic novel that captures the quest for justice at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

In My TBR Stack:

Beyond the Bright Lights: Memoirs of a Public Servant
by Charleston Hartfield
Create Space
Trade Paperback

Note:  Mr. Hartfield died in the Las Vegas mass shooting

From the book publicity:

Documenting the thoughts, feelings, and interactions of one Police Officer in the busiest and brightest city in the world, Las Vegas. This memoir takes you through the personal interactions experienced by a Police Officer with not only the community he seeks to serve but with his partners and their personalities. Some calls are over in an instant while others stick with you forever. Take a sneak peek into this Pandora's box and see if perception really is reality.

On My Radar:

Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump
by Dan Pfeiffer
Twelve Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

On November 9th, 2016, Dan Pfeiffer woke up like most of the world wondering WTF just happened. How had Donald Trump won the White House? How was it that a decent and thoughtful president had been succeeded by a buffoonish reality star, and what do we do now?

Instead of throwing away his phone and moving to another country (which were his first and second thoughts), Pfeiffer decided to tell this surreal story, recounting how Barack Obama navigated the insane political forces that created Trump, explaining why everyone got 2016 wrong, and offering a path for where Democrats go from here.

Pfeiffer was one of Obama’s first hires when he decided to run for president, and was at his side through two presidential campaigns and six years in the White House. Using never-before-heard stories and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, YES WE (STILL) CAN examines how Obama succeeded despite Twitter trolls, Fox News (and their fake news), and a Republican Party that lost its collective mind.

An irreverent, no-BS take on the crazy politics of our time, YES WE (STILL) CAN is a must-read for everyone who is disturbed by Trump, misses Obama, and is marching, calling, and hoping for a better future for the country.

In My TBR Stack:

Treating the Traumatized Child: A Step-by-Step Family Systems Approach
by Scott P. Sells and Ellen Souder
Springer Publishing Company
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

This is the first book that addresses trauma treatment for child and adolescents using a Family Systems Trauma (FST) model which goes beyond individual therapy to include the child and their entire family.

Co-written by a renowned family therapist who created the Parenting with Love and Limits® model, it delivers a research-based , step-by-step approach that incorporates the child’s immediate family along with their extended family to treat the traumatized child or adolescent.

Using a "stress chart," the child or adolescent's trauma symptoms are quickly identified. This strategy guides therapists in accurately diagnosing root causes of the child's trauma and culminates in the creation of co-created "wound playbooks" to heal trauma in both the child as well as other family members.

Additional helpful features include extensive case examples, a menu of trauma techniques, wound playbook examples, evaluation forms, client handouts, and other practical tools to provide the therapist with a complete guide to implementing this approach. Child and family therapists, social workers, mental health counselors, and psychologists working in a variety of settings will find this book a valuable resource.

Key Features:

• Provides a step-by-step, practice focused, time-limited model
• Uses a family systems approach for addressing child and adolescent trauma--the only book of its kind
• Includes useful tools such as checklists, client handouts, and evaluation forms

On My Radar:

The Traveling Feast: On the Road and at the Table with My Heroes
by Rick Bass
Little Brown and Company
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

From his bid to become Eudora Welty’s lawn boy to the time George Plimpton offered to punch him in the nose, lineage has always been important to Rick Bass. Now at a turning point–in his midfifties, with his long marriage dissolved and his grown daughters out of the house–Bass strikes out on a journey of thanksgiving. His aim: to make a memorable meal for each of his mentors, to express his gratitude for the way they have shaped not only his writing but his life.

The result, an odyssey to some of America’s most iconic writers, is also a record of self-transformation as Bass seeks to recapture the fire that drove him as a young man. Along the way we join in escapades involving smuggled contraband, an exploding grill, a trail of blood through Heathrow airport, an episode of dog-watching with Amy Hempel in Central Park, and a near run-in with plague-ridden prairie dogs on the way to see Lorrie Moore, as well as heartwarming and bittersweet final meals with the late Peter Matthiessen, John Berger, and Denis Johnson. Poignant, funny, and wistful, The Traveling Feast is a guide to living well and an unforgettable adventure that nourishes and renews the spirit.

- - - - -

On My Radar:

Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig
by Scott Bradlee
Hachette Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

With student loan debt piling up and no lucrative gigs around the corner, Scott Bradlee found himself in a situation all too familiar to struggling musicians and creative professionals, unsure whether he should use the little income he had to pay the rent on his basement apartment on the fringes of New York City or to avoid defaulting on his loans. 

It was under these desperate circumstances that Bradlee began experimenting, applying his passion for jazz, ragtime, and doo wop styles to contemporary hits by singers like Macklemore and Miley Cyrus–and suddenly an idea was born. The bands Bradlee went on to launch–from A Motown Tribute to Nickelback to Postmodern Jukebox, the rotating supergroup devoted to period covers of pop songs for which he is best known–borrowed from and refined the initial idea he had arrived at to bring genres now sometimes considered arcane to wide audiences. Today, the success he has had is astonishing, with Postmodern Jukebox collecting upwards of three million subscribers on YouTube, selling out major venues around the world, and developing previously unknown talent into superstar singers.

Taking readers through the false starts, absurd failures, and unexpected breakthroughs of Bradlee’s journey from a lost musician to a musical kingmaker headlining Radio City Music Hall–and presenting all the insights he learned along the way to becoming an entrepreneur like no other–OUTSIDE THE JUKEBOX is an inspiring memoir about how one musician found his rhythm and launched a movement that would forever change how people make, distribute, and enjoy their favorite songs.

- - - - -

http://postmodernjukebox.com/outside-the-jukebox/


https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8459600/outside-the-jukebox-scott-bradlee-postmodern-jukebox-book