Overdeliver 

By Brian Kurtz

312 pages

Originally published April 2, 2019

Overdeliver is a book about direct response marketing that every entrepreneur and marketing director should read. It was written by Brian Kurtz, a friend of mine that once ran Boardroom Reports, one of the largest direct response publishing companies in the world.

As it says on the jacket, Overdeliver distills “the expertise he’s gained after almost four decades in the industry to teach readers how to build a business that lasts a lifetime.”

In the book, which summarizes 40 years of in-the-trenches experience, Brian explains the ABCs of finding and selling to an audience of buyers “without compromising on the respect and care they deserve.” He explains how to build marketing plans and how to track them so you know what is effective in the marketing you do and what is not, and how to “overdeliver” to your customers so they will continue to buy from you forever.

Click here to watch a very good review of Overdeliver.

Outer Dark 

By Cormac McCarthy

256 pages

Originally published Sept. 12, 1968

Released in paperback June 29, 1993

This was the January selection for The Mules, my always amusing and superbly insightful reading group here in Delray Beach. We’ve been at it for at least a dozen years. Which means (given our penchant for occasionally reading two books a month) we have read and discussed close to 200 books, about half of them novels.

When we are united in liking an author, we will read two or three books by him/her. For example, we’ve read two of Yuval Harari’s books, several by Malcolm Gladwell, several by Michael Lewis, three of Hemingway’s novels, and several by Cormac McCarthy. Outer Dark was, I think, our third McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy has published 12 novels. The first, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. Outer Dark, I was surprised to learn, was his second novel, published in 1968. (The year I graduated high school!) As a second book, Outer Dark could have been a sophomore failure. And the early reviews were mixed. But today, some critics believe it to be one of his best.

I liked it very much. I read it once and was once again enchanted by the rawness and liveliness of McCarthy’s prose. Then I listened to it on tape and enjoyed it for its story.

Plot: It’s about Rinthy, a woman who bears her brother’s child and then sets out to find it (if it is still alive) after she discovers that her brother lied when he told her that it had died while she was sleeping.

Themes: The McCarthy standards – the ruthlessness of nature, the underrated human capacity for evil, the extreme difficulty of leading a moral life.

Interesting: The title came from the Gospel of Matthew. Specifically, the meeting between the Roman centurion and Jesus, when Jesus says: “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The story is peppered with other Biblical themes. And as GG, one of our regular members, pointed out, there are also many allusions to Greek tragedies.

Critical Reception 

Though some early reviewers complained about McCarthy’s “increasingly dense style and sometimes arcane vocabulary,” most were good. A few examples:

* “Cormac McCarthy’s second novel, Outer Dark, combines the mythic and the actual in a perfectly executed work of the imagination. He has made the fabulous real, the ordinary mysterious.” (Thomas Lask, The New York Times)

* “There is no way to overstate the power, the absolute literary virtuosity, with which McCarthy draws his scenes.” (Walter Sullivan, Sewanee Review)

The first few paragraphs of the book…

SHE SHOOK HIM awake into the quiet darkness. Hush, she said. Quit hollerin.

He sat up. What? He said. What?

She shook him awake from dark to dark, delivered out of the clamorous rabble under a black sun and into a night more dolorous, sitting upright and cursing beneath his breath in the bed he shared with her and the nameless weight in her belly.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man 

A memoir by Paul Newman

Published Oct. 18, 2022

320 pages

I don’t know why, but this book was published 14 years after Paul Newman’s death in 2008 at the age of 83. Like just about every other person in the world that watched American movies, I was a big fan of his. He was in so many good and great movies, including The Hustler, Hud, Harper, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid… I could go on and on.

And he did have an extraordinary life. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA, three Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award… again, I could go on and on. More important than his awards as an actor, he won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his efforts in raising and donating nearly $1 billion to many charities.

Critical Reception 

* “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is all voice – which is to say, it is Newman at his best… [It] is twice the book one could hope for, a narrative that is astute, introspective, and surprisingly graceful.” (Michael O’Donnell, The Wall Street Journal)

* “The book is an extraordinary glimpse into the psyche of one of Hollywood’s greatest icons…. You’ll be hard-pressed to find another star willing to share half as much.” (Julie Miller, Vanity Fair)

* “Raw, honest, and revealing.” (Becky Libourel Diamond, BookPage)

You can read an excerpt from the book (from Literary Hub) here.

Seven Books to Help You Build Wealth in 2023 

Sean MacIntyre is a smart guy. He’s also a polymath. I mentored Sean early in his career. Now, he’s the publisher of DIY Wealth, a website that provides guidance on entrepreneurship, investing, and other aspects of building wealth. (You can sign up for it here.)

In this video, he talks about his favorite books on entrepreneurship and wealth building. If wealth building is on your to-do list for 2023, these recommendations are a good place to start. (Including, by the way, the antepenultimate one on his list!)

Holidays on Ice 

By David Sedaris

128 pages

Originally published Dec. 1997

I knew I had a few Christmas-themed books on the shelves somewhere. I was hoping to find one that would entertain the grandkids. The one I chose could certainly work for the kids, but it would also work for me because it was written by David Sedaris, who is always reliable for a good, smart laugh.

Holidays on Ice is a collection of essays and stories about Christmas. I am reading it now, repeating passages to family and friends who are visiting. My favorite so far is the first one in the book – “Santaland Diaries” – which is Sedaris’s take on working as an elf at a department store grotto.

Critical Reception 

* “Not remotely politically correct or heartwarming.” (Liesl Schillinger, New York Times)

* “David Sedaris is the rare writer who makes you feel more charming and witty after every encounter.” (Lucy Mohl, Seattle Times)

“This is comedy, pure and simple, with occasional moments of surprising sweetness.” (Connie Ogle, Miami Herald)

The Sun Also Rises 

By Ernest Hemingway

Originally published 1926

272 pages

This was Hemingway’s first novel. And I think it’s a very good one.

Plot 

It’s the story of a small group of 20-something British and American expats traveling from Paris to Pamplona several years after WWI. Jake, the main character, is a writer, an outdoorsman, a bullfighting aficionado, a heavy drinker, a war veteran, and a romantic. (Who does that sound like?) He’s in love with Lady Brett Ashley, with whom just about every other character in the novel is in love with. Jake has certain advantages in this contest, as Brett is attracted to manly men. But he has one significant disadvantage: He’s been rendered impotent (or so it seems) from a war wound. Thus, Jake spends most of the story in her periphery, watching her have affairs with acquaintances and friends.

If you know anything about Hemingway, it will be difficult to read this without seeing it as a roman à clef. You’ll want to guess who the other characters are modeled on. (And there’s plenty of research to read about that.) It will also make you wonder if the speculations about Hemingway’s sexual preferences might be true.

But it’s more than a roman à clef. It’s also a travelog, a period piece, and a portrait of the artist as a young man. Which could have been a bit of biting off more than this young writer was able to chew. But it manages to do that and more. It’s also about finding meaning in one’s life after the innocence of youth has been eradicated by experience.

Theme 

That bit I just mentioned about the loss of innocence and the search for meaning has been characterized by some critics as the emblematic chronicle of what Gertrude Stein called “The Lost Generation” – the rejection by the writers and artists who fought in WWI of traditional European and American values and their struggle to feel comfortable reinstalling themselves in the quotidian lives of their fellow countrymen that were protected from the horrors of that war.

Critical Reception 

The Sun Also Rises received mixed reviews when it was first published. One of the problems some critics had with it was that although the story was tragic, the protagonist wasn’t heroic. And the ending was neither triumphant nor tragic. (This was beautifully captured at the end of the novel when Brett says to Jake that had things been different, they could have had “a damned good time together.” Jake’s response, the last line of the novel: “Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?”)

Critics no longer feel that way. In fact, it could be argued that The Sun Also Rises led the way for what some call the modern tragedy.

Another problem some critics had with it was Hemingway’s literary style – the understatement, the pared down sentimentality, the presentation of images and scenes without explanations. Like the treatment of the story, Hemingway’s writing style (most of which he was tutored in by Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound) became the literary standard of American prose.

Today, The Sun also Rises is regarded as one of Hemingway’s best books, and one of the best American novels ever written.

Building a Story Brand 

By Donald Miller

240 pages

Published Oct. 10, 2017

Donald Miller has a blog called “Story Brand” about advertising. He also has an advertising business. His USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is his expertise in creating simple, believable stories about… well, about USPs.

It’s a topic I’m familiar with. And a thesis I embrace. So, I was expecting to like the book. And I did. Miller is a good writer. By that, I mean he is a good thinker who can articulate his ideas clearly and concisely.

In Building a Story Brand, you’ll get plenty of good, individual ideas that will be eyeopeners for novices and reminders for pros. But you will also get Miller’s blueprint for how to write the perfect story brand. One that is simple, believable, and emotionally persuasive.

I recommend it for copywriters, marketers, CEOs, and anyone who wants to create stronger advertising for a business, a non-profit, or an organization of any kind.

Are We Living in George Orwell’s Nightmare or Aldous Huxley’s? 

How many times in recent years have you thought, “This is just like 1984.”? Or “This reminds me of Brave New World”? Click here to read a short, but insightful essay on that subject.

Small Things Like These 

By Claire Keegan

128 pages

Published Nov. 30, 2021

Every once in a while, I read a book that makes me want to read everything the author has written. That is how I feel after reading Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These.

The Genre: Small Things Like These is only 128 pages. I’d call it a novella, but by the time I finished it, it felt like a novel. So, let’s call it a short novel. The story takes place a week before Christmas, and much of it is driven by the advent of that holiday. So, it is a Christmas story. A very good one, that will remind you immediately of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. But it reminded me, too, of O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi and short stories (whose titles I can’t remember now) by Pearl Buck, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. This is definitely a good book to give as a Christmas present to anyone that likes literary fiction.

The Plot: The “action” is almost entirely in the mind of the protagonist, a 40-something coal merchant living in the mid 1980s in a small town in Ireland. He is the hardworking father of four children, and the only thing he cares about is making a good living for his family. Of course, something happens, something small, that challenges that.

Critical Reception 

Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

My Opinion 

I’ve written here and there about how I judge the books I read. In general, I look at four things:

* Breadth – How well does it give me an understanding of the world the story takes place in?

* Depth – How deeply does it delve into what is sometimes called “the human condition”?

* Stickiness – How compelling is the plot? How effectively does it glue me to the page?

* Literary Style – How finely wrought is the writing?

That said, this is how I’d rate Small Things Like These:

* Breadth – 3.5 stars. While restricting the action to the week before Christmas, Claire Keegan does a surprisingly good job of painting a detailed picture of the people and culture of the town. By page 60, I felt like I knew the place all too well.

* Depth – 3.5 stars. The protagonist’s challenge, and Keegan’s handling of how he thinks about it and deals with it, took me into uncomfortable territory: recognizing how difficult it is to measure up to our personal moral standards.

* Stickiness – 3.0 stars. It’s a small story, with a minimalist plot. But it is told with such compassion and power that I was never bored.

* Literary Style – 4.0 stars. It’s been a long time since I discovered a writer that humbled me like Claire Keegan did with this book. (The last time, I think, it was Cormac McCarthy). She writes perfectly proportioned paragraphs. Beautifully simple and simply beautiful sentences.

My Overall Rating: an average of 3.875 stars

Click here to watch a video of Claire Keegan answering a few questions about the book.

From Russia with Love 

By Ian Fleming

First edition April 8, 1957

253 pages

And…