Review: A Paris Apartment

the lowdown
Sotheby's Continental furniture specialist April Vogt is traveling to France after her boss tells her that they have discovered an apartment. This is her chance to escape from New York. April learns that the owner, Marthe de Florian, was once a renowned courtesan who had her portrait painted by Giovanni Boldini. Her story begins to unravel as April sorts through all the furniture and finds her diaries. Not only learning about Marthe's life and unmoving her past, April is also rediscovering herself and the life she left behind in New York before coming to Paris.

Michelle Gable wrote this beautiful novel and it made me want to visit Paris and get lost in its history. The story of Marthe is an interesting one that keeps April invested in the apartment. Its the same way that Gable kept the novel interesting. The two different women portrayed in the novel allowed them to grow and invest in rediscovering herself (April). I found myself never wanting the book to end and just wanted to reread it right after I finished. I liked how Gable is able to flip back to New York and Paris and she gave April that history that every character needs in order to grow throughout the novel.

the good

• Gable is able to keep you interested in the novel and it is a page turner. You want to find out what else April found and if there is something new that happened in Marthe's life. Its a great way to see how the material items in a persons life can hold so much history without one knowing.
• April and Marthe are both strong characters that each grow throughout the novel and show how each person can rediscover themselves if they take the time. These ladies are easy to relate to since they each have different characteristics. 

the bad

• The story does flip flop a lot between the characters. One minute you're reading about April and the next its about Marthe. You have to keep up with who is who and its easy to differentiate but it can get a bit confusing if you aren't paying attention.

the quote
"Life moves on, the world moves on, the seeds we plant continue to grow."

skip it/borrow it/buy it
 I would recommend buying it because it is a good weekend read if you need an imaginative escape from reality.

overall score:8/10

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Review: Time Management Magic by Lee Cockerell

the lowdown
This book centers on primarily--you guessed it--time management skills. This is an interesting twist on the topic, though, due to Cockerell's history with Disney, and before that, with Hilton and Marriott. Now Cockerell ekes out his living giving motivational speeches and writing books about customer service, and now time management. It's nothing ground breaking, but it was a fresh take on the topic.

I was interested in this book because as a law school student, and just generally a human being in today's society, I feel like I'm always pressed for time, as evidenced by the tardiness of this review (my bad y'all). While I can't say that this revolutionized the way that I'm managing my time, it definitely made me consider how little time I spend planning and managing my days. This book definitely drove home to me that spending the time to plan out your next day pays dividends in the future when you wake up knowing what your tasks are. I'm still working at adopting the majority of his system, but it's a work in progress!

the good

• Cockerell really knows his stuff. He wouldn't have had such a successful career without superb time management skills, and he knows it. He was able to drive this home really well by providing examples of the way his system benefited him while he was at Disney, which had the added benefit of providing a slight peek into the world of Disney hotels, which I really enjoyed.
• His system is simple and easy to follow. It felt like something that would me manageable for me to do. Again, it's nothing groundbreaking, or something that you couldn't think of on your own, but it was nice to have it spelled out in front of you. It mainly consists of writing down what you need to get done the next day, and ranking those items, but it's nice to hear it from someone who has really made it work.

the bad

• There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of self promotion in this book. Cockerell really puts the sell on his other books pretty hard. He is also little self serving, at one point celebrating the fact that he has over 3,000 contacts. I think that he promotes his career successes to show that he's been able to accomplish a lot simply by listing the things he needs to get done, but it comes across as vain.
• Additionally, there is a lot of product promotion. If Cockerell doesn't have a kickback set up with DayTimer, the planner he uses, I'd be shocked. He mentions DayTimer more times than I could count, and frequently mentions that they will ship to your house, etc. It would have been more tolerable if DayTimer had something unique that other planners don't, but I didn't see anything in particular.

the quote
"Everything is hard before it is easy, but when you master the hard things, life gets easier."
skip it/borrow it/buy it
This one falls solidly into the borrow it category, primarily due to its brevity. I definitely think it's worth a read, especially if you feel like you're constantly running out of time. His system is solid. But it's a short read, especially when you take out all of the DayTimer references, so borrow this one.

overall score:7/10

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