How to Lead: What You Actually Need to Do to Manage, Lead and Succeed - Jo Owen

Advantages: I'm a non-smoker now, where do you want me to start?
Disadvantages: NONE

...this book if you don't want to quit, why would you get on the bus if you didn't want to go to the shops? You must want to quit and you must be willing to seriously change your views about smoking if you are going to succeed. Secondly there is no point in you buying this book for someone else, they need to decide to do it themselves. But of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't casually slip what you read here into conversation! The book is about 450 pages long, broken into about 50 chapters. The text is pretty small so it is going to take a while to read. I read the book in around two-three weeks and on the whole I found it fascinating and difficult to put down, although at times it can be very repetitive. Allen outlines basic concepts that make so much sense to smokers, if you are a smoker then hopefully you will see smoking in a totally... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: see op
Disadvantages: see op

...for several days after I finshed it- it was a year before I re-read it, since I found it powerful enough to stay with me; when I did choose to reread it, it was nostalgic fondness and awe that prompted it. One of the things I remembered best was how easy it was for Irving to persuade me of certain miraculous events in the book. Perhaps because Johnny is so utterly normal his belief is mirrored in us as we read. Every really absorbing book has a character through whose eyes we see it, and so much is hidden from Johnny- his mother's secret life, and, to an extent, Owen's - that you put yourself very much in his place; after all, how well do we know the people that we know? How much do we know about our parents before what we can remember? What might you not like about this book? Irving does tend to make repeated sexual references (when... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: glorious drawings, captivating story; mythical, fascinating, beautiful language
Disadvantages: dear

...sink back into that reverie, sometimes we can't remember anything of it at all. It eludes us, and yet it may influence us. What makes it even more mysterious: We don't know how dreams work. We don't know what actually happens when we dream, and to what degree dreams can influence our lives. Something else about dreams: We can cast them aside, ban them from our thoughts, and stuff them into a box labelled "superstition". But if we make ourselves aware of them and reflect on them further, they may help us to a deeper understanding of the world (at least our inner world); of how it is or of how we want it (not) to be. And what is also important: Since every one of us dreams, dreams are something all of us can relate to. What is literature? First of all a selection: Of images or of symbols even, of things... Read review

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