Review: Elevate by Joseph Deitch

Title: Elevate, An Essential Guide to Life
Series: n/a
Author: Joseph Deitch
Source/Format: Bookish First; Hardcover
More Details: Self Help; Nonfiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Greenlead Book Group Press; March 27, 2018

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

A modern world that is bursting with data can often make us feel even more lost as we struggle to find meaning and look for the answers to life’s mysteries. Joseph Deitch shares his lifelong pursuit of wisdom and growth in an accessible, practical, down-to-earth gift to his readers. Elevate is a celebration of life and the potential that exists for all of us. It provides both answers and insights as it links awareness and action, East and West, ancient and modern, spiritual and scientific. It offers a formula for turning frustration into fascination and provides a universal framework for what works and why, what to do . . . and why we don’t...

I don’t typically read self-help books unless there’s something about them that not only get but keeps my interest, and that’s exactly what happened with Elevate. I read an excerpt and liked the initial pages. So, I was pretty excited when I got the email indicating that I was getting an early copy. Suffice it to say, I liked Elevate. It was the kind of book that took time to read and made me really think about the information as I went along. Like every book claiming to give advice about life—how to live it and win at it—I always take it with a grain of salt, because implementing changes are never as simple as it’s presented on paper. That being said, Deitch presents some interesting ideas. This book is divided into two sections: Awareness and Action. In Awareness, Deitch talks about perception, learning, and growth among other things. In Action, he discusses 10 different skills such as ask, listen, motivate, energize, structure, leverage, and even love. He often used his own experiences—personal and lessons learned while owning and operating his business—as evidence to back up the validity of his advice. All in all, not a bad read. I plan to keep this one on my shelf for future reference...

Disclaimer: This copy of the book was provided by Greenleaf Book Group Press via Bookish First. 

The Friday 56 (128) & Book Beginnings: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

The first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new universe by the Hugo Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Redshirts and Old Man's War...

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire. The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

Beginning: "The mutineers would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for the collapse of the Flow."

56: "The duke squinted at Kiva. "How do you mean?""

Comments: The Collapsing Empire is a John Scalzi book, and it's good. I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to the next book in the series. Also, does anyone else think the opening line is a little familiar, or is it just me? 

What are you reading this week?

Review: Envy of Angels by Matt Wallace

Title: Envy of Angels
Series: Sin du Jour #1
Author: Matt Wallace
Source/Format: Purchased; ebook
More Details: Urban Fantasy 
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; October 20, 2015

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

In New York, eating out can be hell. Everyone loves a well-catered event, and the supernatural community is no different, but where do demons go to satisfy their culinary cravings? Welcome to Sin du Jour - where devils on horseback are the clients, not the dish...

I didn’t know what to expect with the first book in the Sin du Jour series by Matt Wallace. Prior to diving into it, I’d heard a lot of good things about the series and my expectations were moderate. And I’m happy to report that I enjoyed this story. After all, it combined two of my favorite things: urban fantasy and cooking. With a combination like that, what could possibly go wrong? Well, for the characters, a lot actually. 

I’ve read urban fantasy that also had cooking/catering combined with paranormal elements. And while those stories were good in their own way, I also enjoyed Envy of Angels for what it had to offer. There was a certain, often elevated, degree of ridiculousness to some of the situations the characters ended up in. It was very unexpected, but at the end of the day it worked. The cooking was probably my favorite part of Envy of Angels. I always love the idea behind supernatural catering/restaurants, and this is one of the more unique interpretations of it that I’ve recently read. There was a quirky and strange approach to the types of ingredients described, while the cooking techniques were, well, kind of normal. It was what one would expect from any kind of restaurant kitchen except for the ingredients. The characters are also worth mentioning, because they were interesting. They came from different backgrounds and held different jobs and as a result their skills and internal monologue varied greatly. I particularly enjoyed the side plot that involved Sin du Jour’s “receiving folks” or procurement team. As it so happens, there's a short story about them over on Tor.com. It's called Small Wars, and you can find it here: Small Wars by Matt Wallace; Tor.com.

All in all, Envy of Angels was surprising in the best kind of way. It was everything I was hoping it would be and more. Suffice it to say, I will definitely read more books by Matt Wallace.

Music Monday (40): Flume, Tove Lo, and Miguel

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: Oh man, I haven’t been listening to a lot of new music recently. It’s been a couple of those kinds of weeks where all I want to listen to are playlists of all my favorite music, which is great for me, but not so good for blog content. Oh well....

My first pick this week is Say It by Flume featuring Tove Lo. There’s not really a story to how I came across this song. It wasn’t a happy accident, or even really an accidental discovery since I sought it out. About a year or so ago, I happened to be looking up Tove Lo to see what other music she’d been a part of outside of her three albums (two at the time)—Queen of the Clouds, Lady Wood, and Blue Lips. That’s how I found Say It. I don’t listen to too much of Flume’s music. However, when I find a song by them that I find particularly catchy, it quickly joins the same ranks as some of my all-time favorite music....

My second pick is Bannana Clip by Miguel. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been making my way through more of Miguel’s music. There are so many songs that I absolutely adore like Waves (which I already mentioned on a different Music Monday post), Adore, and Sky Walker featuring Travis Scott....

What are you listening to?

Acrylics #1: The Night (It's Something)

For a while now, I've wanted to try Acrylic paint. I've used watercolor. I've dabbled a little with gouache, but it never became a medium I would automatically reach for. And for the past several months, I've only used watercolor or painted digitally on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A. I've used a combination of paint and colored pencil to get the effect I was looking for. With watercolor, I can spend hours building up layers from light to dark. Too dark too early and the colors get muddied. However, with acrylic paint, I can go from light to dark or from dark to light. It’s the same way with gouache, but like I already mentioned, it just wasn't my favorite medium to use even though its like acrylic. But again, same old same old gets boring after a while, and I was ready to branch out again and try something new. Acrylic seemed to be the obvious choice.

For my first foray into acrylic painting territory, I wanted to try something with dramatic lighting, limited color palette, and darker tones (alternating between pink, purple, and dark to medium blue). And this is the end result, which I've nicknamed The Night. I like the painting. It was fun to play around with the paints and get a feel for them, for example: how much water to add, how the paint behaves on paper, things like that.
However, now that I’m no longer working on this piece, I can pinpoint a few areas that I want to work on. If you look closely at the cheek you can see that the contrast between light and dark is sharp—almost too sharp for my liking. I probably needed a few more shades to bridge the gap between light and dark. I could have used a purple that then transitioned into lavender and then pink, and perhaps a yellow, white, or a lighter blue to brighten certain areas. But it is what it is. And now that I know how I prefer my acrylic paintings to look, I can work towards achieving that on the next one I work on.

Overall, I actually like acrylic paint a lot more than I thought I would. It fits with my process of making art, and I’m now much more excited to continue working with this type of paint. Up next: this sketch. And with the aforementioned things in the second paragraph of this post, I’m more confident that I’ll be able to get the result that I’m looking for.





Have you used acrylic paint? If not, would you try it?