I Would Rather Be Reading

I received a free copy of this book through Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program, now known as BookSneeze. The author is a former mob boss turned motivational speaker. In this book, he takes lessons that the learned while in the mob and explains how those same lessons can be used in a positive sense in a legal business.

Much of the book centers around the conceit of choosing which path you are going to follow, that of Machiavelli or of Solomon. The points that he makes are legitimate, however, for a book by a motivational speaker, I found it less than motivating. It was a quick read, I just never felt any desire to pick it up and read it.

I expect that the same material delivered by the author in a live presentation would be quite different and enjoyable. In book form, however, it came across as mostly trite. Notwithstanding some of the triteness, I thought the advice that was included in the book was good. I also enjoyed his stories about things that happened when he was in the mob. In fact, I enjoyed those stories much more than the “advice” portion of the book.

One of the things that I loved about this book was the fact that it was part of the NelsonFree program. This means that when you get the book, you also have the ability download both an electronic copy of the book as well as an audio version of the book. I see this as a great value added benefit.

In fact, I downloaded both the electronic version and the audio version. I finished reading the book on the electronic version and I listened to selection portions of the audio book. As I hinted above, I actually enjoyed the audio version of the book better than the printed version.

In short, this is an easy read, I was just never captivated by it. On the other hand, I love the experimentation with the NelsonFree program and I hope more publishers trying this type of program.