Adult

Just out in paperback, this book is quite enjoyable.  Truss is fed up with miserable punctuation, and this book not only makes fun of various mistakes but also teaches the reader how to avoid errors.  Trust me – it is worth reading just to understand the title.

If you have not read any of the books in this series, why not start with the fourth installment?  After all, the others stretch to about 240 pages each.  Precious Ramotswe, a female private detective in Botswana, is one of the more interesting characters to have been created in recent literature.  A perfect book for those who have to deal with bureaucracy daily.

Finally, a book without a colon (punctuation-wise, that is).  This is largely considered to be Cather’s first masterpiece.  I enjoy it because it reminds me a lot of the much longer Little House on the Prairie.  

It took me too long to include Dave Barry on one of my lists.  His writing is among the funniest, and he has written enough books to warrant his own list.  This is one of the shorter ones, but none are too long (and all are very funny).

Ellen Degeneres has about as much exposure nowadays as Jessica Simpson, only she has talent and warrants every kudo.  Read this on the beach with a margarita and enjoy life.  Ellen is plain funny.

The title is a lot like the writing:  too long (my dissertation had a shorter title).  However, grab a copy and snag some very useful advice on how to retire by the time you turn 47 (like Kiyosaki did).

What ever happened to short titles?  Regardless, P.J. O’Rourke is one of the funniest political satirists today.  I once bumped into him at the bar at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.  He said, “Hey,” and I replied, “Excuse me.”  That is about the extent of my brushes with celebrities. 

One of the best books of 2003.  Look at these opening lines, and you are bound to buy the book:  “The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back.”  An intriguing account that is as informative as it is entertaining.

I thought I’d throw in some classic literature this month.  This is also appropriate for young adults, as it deals with a young man’s journey to self-discovery.  I thought it was pretty good when I read it in high school; today, I like it even better.

Now this is an old classic.  Based on the “Babylonian principles,” this may be one of the first popular guides to containing one’s finances and planning for financial security.  I’m a big believer in letting anecdotes guide my thinking rather than statistics, and even if this book was first published in the 1920s, the stories hold true today.

If you are not familiar with Miss Marple’s mysteries, you need to start reading this delightful series (most of the books are around 256 pages).  Miss Marple is best-known for solving crimes with the same methodical approach she devotes to her knitting.  I believe Agatha Christie is the bestselling author of all time (outside religious disciples).

This is a perfect book for light and entertaining reading.  Actually, the book that is in bookstores now has a collection of Capote’s short stories, including this classic about Holly Golightly.  I love Truman Capote for a number of reasons:  (a) he was best friends as a child with To Kill a Mockingbird scribe Harper Lee; (b) his stories are very different and all well-written; and (c) I read a story that a six-year-old boy sent Capote a story he wrote, and Capote mailed the boy this response:  “good writing…poor spelling…send more.”  That boy turned out to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.  Moral:  be nice to everybody because you never have any idea who they may or will be.

Sunee Foley recommended this “almost” memoir to me, and it appealed to me because it is written in verse.  The book reads a lot like Larry McMurtry’s excellent (but longer) Terms of Endearment.

So what if it’s a tad bit longer than I’d like.  Patricia and Jay Edie, as well as Jill Aguilar, recommended this book to me, and I am so glad I read this hilarious and touching mystery of sorts.  I do not know quite how to categorize this book:  think Rain Man meets As Good As It Gets, with touches of Memento and What the Deaf Man Heard thrown in.  Do I sound like a guy who can pitch a movie to Hollywood or what?

Since I have started conducting motivational leadership seminars, I have read an endless array of books on leadership.  This is one I recommend because of its length, lessons and readability (many thanks to Beverly Franco for telling me about it).  Written more as a parable (a la Ken Blanchard) than a business text.