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Audio Book Reviews : Books For Ears http://booksforears.com The best audio books to put into your ears - friendly, honest audiobook reviews. Wed, 01 Jun 2016 04:18:05 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.3 Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner http://booksforears.com/2016/05/30/swordspoint-ellen-kushner/ Tue, 31 May 2016 03:46:50 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2591 Reader: Ellen Kushner and Full Cast
Extras: An introduction by Neil Gaiman, which you can listen to below
Short Review: Character-driven sweeping tale of court intrigue, thieves, and swordsmen read beautifully by many voices and accompanied by music and sound effects. Witty and funny, a great tale.

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Swordspoint Audio BookSwordspoint
Author: Ellen Kushner
Reader: Ellen Kushner and Full Cast
Extras: An introduction by Neil Gaiman, which you can listen to below

Short Review: Character-driven sweeping tale of court intrigue, thieves, and swordsmen read beautifully by many voices and accompanied by music and sound effects. Witty and funny, a great tale.

Long Review: For those of us well read in the Fantasy genre, this is one of those books that many people expect you to have read. But I hadn’t, until about two weeks of my spare time were swallowed whole by this story.

Richard St Vier is the best swordsman. He lives in Riverside, the “other side of the tracks” which in this story is the “other side of the bridge”. Riverside is the home to thieves, swordsman, and prostitutes. They have their own rules – and those not from Riverside rarely dare to cross within its borders. Meanwhile, up on the hill across the bridge, is the nice side of town – home to the rich and the people in charge.

Much of this story is what I think of as court intrigue – people in power manipulating things behind the scenes to get more power or regain power. As is often the case, those with power use everything, and everyone, at their disposal to shift things to their liking. There are lots of beautiful parties and back room negotiations. Those in Riverside are frequently entangled in the intrigue from across the bridge and it is in midst of these entanglements that we find much of the story. In Swordspoint, duels settle disputes — and when you aren’t a swordsman yourself, then you need someone to fight in your stead. Someone like Richard St Vier, if you are very lucky.

There are a lot of characters to follow. I will admit to sometimes losing track of some of the names for a bit, but anyone important enough to demand attention would soon turn up again and I shortly got everyone sorted out. I wonder if that would have been easier had I been seeing the names rather than hearing them, but the different voices of the audiobook also helped me differentiate the characters as well – so it might not have made a difference after all.

I will admit to having thought about one of my father’s adages about stories a few times during this book: “Who is there to root for?”. Such is the way of things when so many of the characters that get a lot of ‘screen time’ are scheming against each other. It takes a while to sort out everyone’s agendas (that is part of the fun!). But it didn’t take long before I found people to root for and care about. In fact, even when I didn’t like what they were doing, I was often captivated by their machinations. Swordspoint tells quite the tale. It is one of those stories in which you can lose yourself for a while.

On top of being a great story, you might also be considering listening to Swordspoint because of its connection to the new serial story Tremontaine, available in eBook and audio installments. Tremontaine is a prequel to Swordspoint. If that leaves you uncertain about which story to start with, you might want to read the tips from the author on what order to read them.

One last tidbit about the story — in the world of Swordspoint, romantic attachments are quite varied and just as likely to be between those of the same sex as those of the opposite sex. That this is just how things are is so rare as to be a bit of a revelation. We see from the very start that Richard St Vier lives with his lover Alec in Riverside… and the story just barrels onward. No excuses, no hedging – the story tells us how each pair of people relates to one another as we go along. I loved that.

I am more accustomed to listening to more traditional audiobooks which feature a single reader from end to end. This audiobook is very different. It is halfway between a full-cast audiobook and a radio play. Lots of different voices (including a fair amount by the author), intervals of music, and even some sound effects. Click on the second Soundcloud clip below for a sample. It took some getting used to, but overall I enjoyed it.  You can also learn more about the creation of the audiobook as an ‘Illumniated audiobook”. The readers were very expressive – and I never found myself confused about who was speaking. Honestly, going back to a ‘regular’ audiobook after Swordspoint took a bit of adjustment. Where was my music? My sound effects?

Introduction by Neil Gaiman:

Book sample:

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Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller http://booksforears.com/2016/03/08/patience-sarah-isabel-miller/ http://booksforears.com/2016/03/08/patience-sarah-isabel-miller/#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2016 05:24:27 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2552 Readers: Janis Ian and Jean Smart

Short Review: Touching lesbian love story, set in early 1800s and read beautifully. The two readers each read the portion of the story told from a single point of view. It really works.

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Patience and SarahPatience and Sarah

Author: Isabel Miller
Readers: Janis Ian and Jean Smart

Also available directly from Janis Ian’s webstore.

GRAMMY Award nominated for “Best Spoken Word”

Short Review: Touching lesbian love story, set in early 1800s and read beautifully. The two readers each read the portion of the story told from a single point of view. It really works.

Long Review: Originally self-published in 1969, this love story is set in the early 1800s in New England. It tells the story of the love found by Patience White (maiden aunt and painter) and Sarah Dowling (farmer’s daughter, cast in life as farmer’s son for practicality) in a world that mostly believed such a thing was neither possible nor permissible. The story alternates points of views between Patience and Sarah, to great effect. They are such different people, but you can see where their love comes from. The contrast of their backgrounds, and their expectations for their lives, make the story all the more compelling.

I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but it isn’t hard to assume from the premise that there will be plenty of challenges laid in their paths. It is a story of what it means to both fall in love and *be* in love. We are taken into the hearts of Patience and Sarah, but at the same time given a taste of what their worlds were like. What does it mean to fight for love? When is the fight too much — what is worth sacrifice and what is not?

There are so many other things I loved about this book. I loved seeing painting and color through Patience’s eyes. I loved Sarah’s practicality and straight forwardness. The supporting characters are varied and interesting, the path of the story less predictable then you might expect. The author created a vivid world that I really enjoyed visiting.

Both readers do an amazing job, each giving us a glimpse into their respective character’s mind – as well as providing easy to distinguish voices for the other members of the story. The two SoundCloud clips below give you a small taste of each of the readers and a toe in the water of the story they tell. They both made it so easy to get lost in the story. This is definitely a “find more excuses to keep listening” audio book.

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The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over by Jack Schafer, PhD and Marvin Karlins, PhD http://booksforears.com/2015/11/04/the-like-switch-schafer-and-karlins/ http://booksforears.com/2015/11/04/the-like-switch-schafer-and-karlins/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2015 19:43:26 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2571 Reader: George Newbern

Short Review: A beginner's course in verbal and non-verbal communication with others to instill trust and likability, with some entertaining and unbelievable personal stories.

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the like switchThe Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over

Available from Audible through Amazon.com

Authors: Jack Schafer, Ph.D. and Marvin Karlins, Ph.D.

Reader: George Newbern

Short Review: A beginner’s course in verbal and non-verbal communication with others to instill trust and likability, with some entertaining and unbelievable personal stories.

Long Review: Dr. Schafer begins drawing you into his book with stories from his work in counter-intelligence, which sound like they should be a book in and of themselves. Every time the stories catch your interest, he switches back to the lesson at hand. With his knowledge of behavioural analysis he gives the most basic tips on etiquette and friendliness. Whether he’s telling you how to make small talk to engage the other person (spoiler: you LISTEN instead of talk) or having you practice facial expressions to appear more approachable (don’t scrunch your eyebrows or frown), there are a great many things in this book that are no secret. The narrator does a good job of relaying the book in an expert fashion, so that you may not even realize he’s not an author.

What makes this book the one you want on your mp3 player is: He ties all these little actions together. With some conscious thought about how you’re portraying yourself, you’re sure to notice an uptick in your ability to “win people over”. I remain a bit incredulous that he’s sharing *everything* he can with us, however. How can these simple techniques used over a long period of time help to turn an intelligence operative into a double agent? He shares stories with us of these techniques at work, but I must admit I find some of it too “easy” to believe. Is this a detriment to this book? Not at all, because it has the listener thinking even more about what he has been saying while anxious to test out new expressions and responses.

While the audiobook influenced me and won *ME* over, I’m not changing any alliances any time soon… especially being “hip” to the techniques now.

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Smarter Branding Without Breaking the Bank by Brenda Bence http://booksforears.com/2015/11/04/smarter-branding-brenda-bence/ Wed, 04 Nov 2015 18:26:21 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2559 Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Speaking to "solo-preneurs" and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises), this book gives clear direction on how to market and brand your company for no-cost or low-cost.

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smarter branding without breaking the bank by brenda benceSmarter Branding Without Breaking The Bank

Available from Audible through Amazon.com

Author: Brenda Bence

Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Speaking to “solo-preneurs” and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises), this book gives clear direction on how to market and brand your company for no-cost or low-cost.

Long Review: As her own website states, “Brenda Bence is a renowned international branding and leadership expert who shows both individuals and companies how to achieve greater success through corporate and personal branding.” If you want proof, listen to this book. This book holds your hand and walks you through many steps toward building your own marketing and promotional Brand. It becomes clear very early in the book that your intention and focus impact how you are received in the marketplace.

You need to have a Brand Positioning Statement. What is that? Jump on into this book, where Ms. Bence will easily explain it, with ample discussions and examples along the way. Once you have your Brand Positioning Statement, she leads you through understanding how to leverage your assets and differences into building a more successful business. Whether you are a direct sales person, a one-person company, a manager/owner, or the director of operations, you WILL benefit from this book. You won’t need extra time, you can re-apportion your time. You won’t need a big marketing budget, you can use approaches and ideas in Smarter Branding to build attention and respect for your products and services right away.

I want to give this book 5 stars, because it is great to have and refer to again and again. I had one problem with listening to it, however. The audio levels in this release vary so greatly, that it disturbed the listening experience. So, you are forewarned here: Crank it up loud while the softly-spoken Bence is speaking, and turn it down to half volume when the musical interlude pipes in between chapters.

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Indexing by Seanan McGuire http://booksforears.com/2015/09/29/indexing-seanan-mcguire/ Tue, 29 Sep 2015 09:06:49 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2523 Reader: Mary Robinette Kowal

Short Review: A team of government agents try to stop predatory fairy tales from taking over the world by solving fairy tale crimes in this episodic tale where happily ever after isn’t nearly as wonderful as it sounds. An exciting overarching story told through episodes reminiscent of the very best crime shows.

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Indexing
Indexing
Author: Seanan McGuire
Reader: Mary Robinette Kowal

Short Review: A team of government agents try to stop predatory fairy tales from taking over the world by solving fairy tale crimes in this episodic tale where happily ever after isn’t nearly as wonderful as it sounds. An exciting overarching story told through episodes reminiscent of the very best crime shows.

Long Review:The ATI Management Bureau is people with men and women whose lives have been hijacked by fairy tales, their flesh and their minds made over to suit the predatory Narrative. Henrietta “Henry” Marchen’s mother was taken by the Sleeping Beauty story, casting Henry right into the Snow White mold. Skin as white as snow with lips as red as blood aren’t nearly as attractive as Disney would have you believe. Henry leads her own team of agents comprised of an Evil Stepsister (the embodiment of feminine evil in fairy tales forever stuck in a teenage body), a Shoemaker’s Elf (because someone has to do the paperwork) and a man who lost his brother to a Sleeping Beauty that manifested in a remote small town whose inhabitants died of starvation before anyone realized what was going on. The team solves cases in the best traditions of all the crime shows you’ve ever seen.

The book comes from a deep love of all things fairy tale. McGuire clearly knows her fairy tales, enough to find the weird, obscure references, the points of divergence. She knows just where to twist to get the biggest effect. She knows just which parts of fairy tales to play straight for the most horrific effect. She is very good at finding the points where fairy tales meeting reality cause tragedies. She is also very good at finding the humanity in age-old stereotypes.

The crime aspects of the book are interesting and varied, the mysteries behind each of the episodes are engaging, each of them a twist on some well-known fairy tale. But these are no “monster of the week” episodes; each novella drives the larger story forward, toward an ending that is both satisfying and exciting.

Mary Robinette Kowal is easily one of my all time favorite readers. She has the skill to bring characters to life in a way that many others lack. She’s amazing at conveying emotion without letting it take over the story she’s telling. I’m prone to cry at narratives with convenient bends to them, but I have never made it through a book Mary has read without crying. She is a master craftsperson who uses her voice to cause pain and suffering as well as joy and laughter. I can’t get enough of her reading.

I love this book more than I can say. I’m generally a fan of Urban Fantasy; women doing heroic things in modern cities with speculative fiction trappings is entirely in my wheelhouse. Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite authors for many reasons, but the fact that she writes books like that alone would automatically make her a clear favorite. But on top of these, Indexing specifically also taps into my eternal addiction of crime shows. I recommend it to everyone who likes fantasy or crime.

My only quibble, the only thing that makes this book less than perfect, is the fact that it ends too soon. Like the crime shows that clearly act as inspiration, Indexing ends in a series cliffhanger that will most likely be resolved in the second book. And frankly, I get somewhat impatient with cliffhanger endings. While no author is the reader’s bitch I generally try not to get too into books that have cliffhanger endings without the next book in the series being available.

Full Disclosure: I’m a student of Mary Robinette Kowal’s and might, therefore, be slightly biased in her favor. That being said, she was one of my all-time favorite readers before she ever started offering classes that I could attend. And I attended her class because I really enjoyed her work. See, how that’s a vicious cycle?

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Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein http://booksforears.com/2015/09/04/rose-fire-elizabeth-wein/ Fri, 04 Sep 2015 08:10:23 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2511 Reader: Sasha Pick

Short Review: Elizabeth Wein continues the heart wrenching legacy begun by Codename: Verity. This is the story of Rose Justice, an American ATA pilot, who gets captured in by Nazis and is thrown into Ravensbrück concentration camp. What follows is a brutal story of trying to find hope in a hopeless situation. Wein delivers a book that will leave you emotionally spent, read by Sasha Pick.

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Rose Under FireRose Under Fire
Author: Elizabeth Wein
Reader: Sasha Pick

Available from Audible.com

Short Review: Elizabeth Wein continues the heart wrenching legacy begun by Codename: Verity. This is the story of Rose Justice, an American ATA pilot, who gets captured in by Nazis and is thrown into Ravensbrück concentration camp. What follows is a brutal story of trying to find hope in a hopeless situation. Wein delivers a book that will leave you emotionally spent, read by Sasha Pick.

Long Review: Rose Justice is an American ATA pilot who’s come to England to help with the war effort. While transporting an Allied plane from Paris to English soil, Rose is forced to land and is promptly captured by Nazis and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Wein details the daily humiliations of concentration camp in a way that feels viscerally real.

Although the book is set in a series with Codename: Verity, there is very little that remains from the first book in the series. Rose Under Fire focuses on the survival and search for hope of a single individual who, unlike the protagonists of Verity, is American. There are planes and heartbreak for the reader but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Rose Under Fire is a much more brutal and a much darker book than Verity ever was. This is not necessarily a bad thing as such but it’s important for the reader to know that this is an emotionally draining book, which is not entirely unexpected from Wein as an author.

As it was for Codename: Verity, Rose Under Fire is extensively researched and while fictional, no doubt shows a composite of many real lives. The atrocities described in the book really happened in Ravensbrück and the visceral details Wein provides only serve to make it more real. She does not pull any punches.

Sasha Pick does a good job of setting the scene with her voice acting and distinguishes characters easily. She conveys the emotions in the book in an understated way that manages to not take away from the listener. However, some of the voices she lends to the characters start to get a little tiring with the sheer brutality of the book.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loved Codename: Verity and anyone who is a fan of historical fiction, especially books set in the second World War. It gives a voice to rarely heard viewpoints. However I don’t think anyone should go into this unprepared. The book will leave you chewed up and spit out. Allow me to recommend spending some time on Emergency Kitten! afterward.

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The Freelancer’s Survival Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch http://booksforears.com/2015/08/12/freelancers-survival-guide-kristine-kathryn-rusch/ http://booksforears.com/2015/08/12/freelancers-survival-guide-kristine-kathryn-rusch/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:22:02 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2473 Reader: Julie Eickhoff

Short Review: The ultimate guide to anyone considering going into a freelance business or already working as a freelancer. Filled with useful examples, good advice as well as commiseration.

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Author: Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Reader: Julie Eickhoff

Short Review: The ultimate guide to anyone considering going into a freelance business or already working as a freelancer. Filled with useful examples, good advice as well as commiseration.

Long Review: Kristine Kathryn Rusch has always been a freelancer of one form or another. In her own words she’s made every mistake so that we don’t have to. She covers a wide range of topics from getting started to knowing when to quit. Rusch has extensive experience in freelancing besides writing. She has worked in radio, retail and editing. On top of that she has friends who are also freelancers in many other fields. It follows that the examples she gives around any given topic are from many different areas of freelancing.

The examples are by far the best thing about the book. They often induce sympathetic groans, sometimes laughter. But no matter how much you as a hopeful or new freelancer feel like you’re just flailing around in the dark, the examples will certainly let you know that at least you’re not the only one doing so.

It should be mentioned that The Freelancer’s Survival Guide can be read for free online. Rusch is also known to update the content as updates become necessary. The book started out as a series of blog posts that was retooled into a full book. Some of the book’s chapters were further cut down into minibooks for people who are only interested in a specific topic.

Julie Eickhoff is easily one of my favorite non-fiction readers. She has a no-nonsense type of voice that is still filled with humor on occasion. I know there are plenty of people who find her type of voice grating so I would advise on listening to a sample before purchasing the book.

Personally I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is practical while also encouraging you to dream big, realistic but also inspirational. I suspect this will become one of those books I’ll listen to over and over again, because most of the content is not tied to time in any way.

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Hit by Delilah S. Dawson http://booksforears.com/2015/07/31/hit-delilah-s-dawson/ Fri, 31 Jul 2015 23:37:07 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2464 Reader: Rebekkah Ross

Short Review: Hit by Delilah S. Dawson is an engaging, at times painful YA story about what happens when the banks completely take control of America.

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Author: Delilah S. Dawson

Reader: Rebekkah Ross

Short Review: Hit by Delilah S. Dawson is an engaging, at times painful YA story about what happens when the banks completely take control of America.

Long Review: Valor National Bank has taken over America. There is only the United States of Valor. 911 calls get relayed to Valor voicemail. And then the men in black start showing up at the doors of a few select debtors. Each of them is given a choice; be killed or hunt down the debtors whose name appears on their list during the five days of service they sign over. Patsy has been a good girl all her life whose most rebellious act has been yarn bombing. But her mother’s been sick and the bills have been piling up. When given a choice of going on a killing spree or watch the man in black kill her mother, the choice is obvious.

What follows is the harrowing journey of a young woman being forced to grow up in a rather brutal fashion. She has five names on her list and she has to give each of them a choice: pay the debt on the spot, agree to work as a contract killer, or be killed at the hands of the person offering the choice. Because it’s YA, the talk never gets too maudlin but all the feels are present and accounted for. The main character Patsy’s loss of innocence is heartbreaking to follow. On top of that, the book is a really interesting take on connecting dystopia and the world that we know and at least sometimes love.

Rebekkah Ross, the narrator, has only narrated YA and New Adult books as far as I can see and that shows. She has a voice that is very well suited for the genre, capable of delivering so much emotion without becoming hysterical, despite the character’s occasional bouts of the same.

Overall, I think Hit is a good choice for anyone who likes dystopian YA books. It’s fresh and original without veering too far from the genre norms. It’s engaging enough that even though there are undoubtedly holes in the plot or the world, I never noticed them. This is a book that will grab hold and won’t let go until the very last words.

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The City Stained Red by Sam Sykes http://booksforears.com/2015/05/21/city-stained-red-sam-sykes/ http://booksforears.com/2015/05/21/city-stained-red-sam-sykes/#comments Thu, 21 May 2015 06:02:18 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2416 Reader: David DeSantos

Short Review: The City Stained Red is like the love child of Skyrim and Arabian Nights. Action packed and compelling, great if you like that sort of thing, it none the less got a little old for my taste.

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Author: Sam Sykes

Reader: David DeSantos

Short Review: The City Stained Red is like the love child of Skyrim and Arabian Nights. Action packed and compelling, great if you like that sort of thing, it none the less got a little old for my taste.

Long Review: The City Stained Red is the first of a new series called Bring Down Heaven set in the same world, with apparently a lot of the same characters as his Aeon’s Gate trilogy. I’ve been following Sam Sykes on Twitter for at least a year or so and I’ve been meaning to pick up a book of his to read so when the offer of a review copy came along I jumped at it.

After I suffered an overdose of epic fantasy as a teenager, I haven’t really been reading that much of it. In many ways The City Stained Red was a return to the things I used to love about epic fantasy; strange creatures having problems and taking care of things. The plot is pretty straightforward as the main character, Lenk, and his companions go about trying to get paid for a job they’ve already completed. Each of them has their own problems and hang-ups and they keep trying to deal with them in the best ways they know how.

The narrative is compelling and very much like a video game for all the good and the bad that entails. Around the halfway point the constant battles against more or less meaningless monsters started to feel like grinding. It says something about the quality of writing though that it took that long. The writing is compelling, the characters and world interesting.

The reader, David DeSantos, is highly competent, even entertaining. He’s a solid narrator but nowhere near to being among my favorites. But that’s most likely just a matter of taste.

This book is a solidly entertaining piece of epic fantasy that becomes excellent if you love epic fantasy and video games.

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Master the Brand Called YOU by Brenda Bence http://booksforears.com/2015/04/24/master-brand-brenda-bence/ Fri, 24 Apr 2015 18:21:18 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2403 Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Master the Brand Called You; The proven leadership branding system to help you earn more, do more, and be more at work is a step by step look at how to use proven marketing techniques to further your own business persona and career. A clear, understandable method to reflect on how you can improve your skills and project your most needed qualities at work.

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Master the Brand Called YouMaster the Brand Called YOU; The proven leadership personal branding system to help you earn more, do more, and be more at work

Available from Audible.com

Author: Brenda Bence

Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Master the Brand Called You; The proven leadership branding system to help you earn more, do more, and be more at work is a step by step look at how to use proven marketing techniques to further your own business persona and career. A clear, understandable method to reflect on how you can improve your skills and project your most needed qualities at work.

 

Long Review:

Brenda Bence is an enthusiastic proponent for applying product brand marketing techniques, with her own twist, to be used by you in your own career. She lays out an easy to understand plan for developing your own Brand identity and carrying it through in detail. You will determine your target audience, your strengths, and what you will need to work on.

In addition to the thorough explanations along the way, Bence has made a template available online to follow along with the book, so the listener can log their personal goals while completing the book.

If you can wrap your head around the fact that marketing and psychology bear such great weight in our perception of daily life, you will adore this book and Bence’s suggestions for gaining more control of your Brand. If you haven’t given much previous thought to the aspects that go into marketing, this book is going to open up an entire new world to you. If you can begin to understand how you influence others, you can change the world.

Short book. Great presentation. Great Author. Highly recommended.

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Would YOU Want to Work for YOU? by Brenda Bence http://booksforears.com/2015/04/11/work-you-brenda-bence/ Sat, 11 Apr 2015 05:07:49 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2363 Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Would YOU Want to Work for YOU? How to build an executive leadership brand that inspires loyalty and drives employee performance is an audiobook that is short in length but big in information. Bence covers 15 behaviour sets to better lead others. You’ll want more than one listen and a notepad to jot notes and diagrams.

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Would YOU Want to Work for YOU?Would YOU Want to Work for YOU?: How to Build an Executive Leadership Brand That Inspires Loyalty and Drives Employee Performance

Available from Audible.com

Author: Brenda Bence
Reader: Brenda Bence

Short Review: Would YOU Want to Work for YOU? How to build an executive leadership brand that inspires loyalty and drives employee performance is an audiobook that is short in length but big in information. Bence covers 15 behaviour sets to better lead others. You’ll want more than one listen and a notepad to jot notes and diagrams.

Long Review: The book starts out in a lulling fashion, and I was originally concerned about Ms. Bence’s soothing voice causing me distraction. I was so intent on listening “differently” to this non-fiction piece, that it wasn’t until I reset my ears to her tone that I could focus. This well-spoken instructor said she would be posing me the hard questions and would be rough on my self-reflection; somehow, she pulls this off while remaining truly likeable the entire time.

Bence is intent on teaching you how to cross the “Leadership Threshold” by (in the quote by John Pepper) “Being Coachable”. Encouraging the listener to put a mirror in front of their OWN behaviours and attitudes, Bence gives AHA moments of realization to the listener. Each subject is accompanied by an example of why it works and how best to use the process.

While the book is aimed at executives wanting to become The Executive, the tools in this book can easily be helpful for any businessperson, parent, or decent human being. You’ll find yourself nodding along in agreement, grabbing paper to jot notes to yourself, and wanting a second listen. I have already suggested this book to two people who are new to supervisory roles and want to learn how to improve. At just over 4 hours, I don’t see how anyone could afford NOT to listen to this book.

I look forward to reading more books by this author and her tips on Branding and Business.

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The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer http://booksforears.com/2015/01/08/art-of-asking-amanda-palmer/ Thu, 08 Jan 2015 05:07:06 +0000 http://booksforears.com/?p=2339 Reader: Amanda Palmer

Short Review: Intense and personal treatise on art, music, creativity, community, connection, love, loss, and asking for (and accepting) help from others. Amanda's style of reading is intimate and confessional.

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The Art of Asking Audio BookThe Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

Author: Amanda Palmer
Reader: Amanda Palmer
Extras: Songs. In the book you get lyrics. In the audio book you get music. Also, the introduction read by Brené Brown and the afterword is read by Jamy Ian Swiss.

Available from Audible.com

Short Review: Intense and personal treatise on art, music, creativity, community, connection, love, loss, and asking for (and accepting) help from others. Amanda’s style of reading is intimate and confessional.

Long Review: Amanda Palmer wrote ‘The Art of Asking’ in a series of whirlwind weeks in Australia. She poured it out during what sound like intense ten hour days. To my eye it is three stories woven together. One story traces her path as an artist and musician. The second traces her journey in figuring out how to be in love. The third is about coming to terms with the threat of losing your mentor.

This is definitely a book I would recommend you listen to rather than read. Not all authors are meant to read their own books, but this book is perfect for it. You get to hear her emphasis, her emotions, and (of course) her music. She is right there with you telling you her secrets – her revelations – her wild ideas. And I love the voice she uses when recounting the words of her husband, Neil Gaiman. The Neil Gaiman fans among you will get some behind-the-scenes details of his life too.

I am so glad that there isn’t any way for me to ‘spoil’ the story for you. It isn’t that sort of book. I knew going in that parts of the book made some people cry. I was braced for it… but somehow her story snuck up on me anyway. Followed by a very sad song. All on the subway on the way to work. Thank goodness I had a tissue in my coat pocket. I tweeted what happened. Amanda replied to my tweet with a <3.

Don’t worry, the book also made me laugh (which will also gets you strange looks on the subway) and dream and want to go home and make more art.

A lot of this book talks about community. About building and connecting with your community. It is as much about finding a community to give to as it is about asking for a community to help you. This book does talk about her wildly successful Kickstarter, but there is no silver bullet here about how to do the same. The real secret is the same one that my friend Fred knows (he and his partners over at Evil Hat have had a number of very successful game related Kickstarters): first spend ten years building and connecting with a community.

This book is more memoir than self-help book, but you might walk away from it with new ideas about how to approach your life. Do you consider yourself an artist or wish you did? Listen to this. Are you afraid to depend on others, even those you love? Listen to this. Are you a fan of Amanda’s music? Listen to this.

Not sold yet? Amanda gave a TED talk in February of 2013 on ‘The art of asking’. This book is a direct result of that talk and its resonance with people. Over six million people have watched it. It is less than 14 minutes long, and if you are on the fence about if this book is for you – go give it a listen. Either she will reel you in or she won’t.

Assorted Disclaimers: I was a fan of Amanda Palmer before I listened to this book. I backed her Kickstarter. I attended a house party (the one in Ashburn that involved time in the closet where I read her a poem and gave her a mobile made of doll parts). I attended one of the book tour concerts and waited in line for my copy to be signed the day after the book came out. I attended the same small liberal arts university (though not at the same time). I asked for, and was given, a review copy of this audio book. I expect I was quite pre-disposed to like it. Feel free to take that into account as you decide if you think you will enjoy it based on my review above.

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