Review

Book Review: “Another World” by Maximillian Matthews

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Rating: 3 Stars

Headline: A good read for anyone wanting to better understand a minority subsection of American society

Review:

Another World is the autobiographical memoir by Maximillian Matthews, covering his life growing up in North Carolina and forging a professional career during the late noughties. Self-identifying as black queer, Matthews’ memoir aims to provide readers from the same community with the type of material that does not readily exist on accessible bookshelves.

From growing up in North Carolina, to living and working in Boston and Washington DC, Matthews draws on various colourful experiences to convey the highs and lows of integrating himself into both the LGBTQ+ community and broadly within American society. The way Matthews recounts the key drivers behind his actions makes for some touching moments in the book, particularly in scenes where he acknowledges some of the harmful actions and behaviours self-inflicted in the pursuit of acceptance and love.

Good for bringing out some of the general themes around systematic racism and homophobia in America, Another World does tend to lose focus, in places pulling on quotes from external sources to draw in entirely separate debates. In one instance the dramatic retelling of a traumatic break-up is punctured by a tangent on the politics of attraction. Such tangents are all of insightful importance, but their placement sometimes does Matthews’ life experiences a disservice.

The flow of Another World also comes across as a bit hap-hazard. Having been brought on a chronological journey in the first third of the book, readers are suddenly dropped into Matthews’ strained efforts to work hard at his educational studies in High School whilst concealing his true identity. It was about ten or so pages on, when Matthews refers to his mother’s presence while growing up that I wondered if the book would have benefitted from a structural rejig.

Another World is a starting point for anyone wanting to better understand a minority subsection of American society. As someone who self-identifies as a white woman living in the United Kingdom, it has given me plenty to think about. That alone should be treated as a success.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Another World”

Purchase Link: “Another World” by Maximillian Matthews (Amazon)

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Book Review: “14 Lessons in Happiness” by Gina Ross

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: A sweet little read with useful tips and methods to bring out your inner calm

Review:

14 Lessons in Happiness by Gina Ross is a simple self-help guide which aims to give the reader quick, nugget-sized, doses of advice to improve internal positivity and outlook on life. Each of the fourteen chapters is introduced by an inspirational quote, a summary of the topic (sometimes bringing in the author’s personal experiences) and then several step-by-step meditation activities. These activities are, like the rest of the content, intended to be straightforward and quick to apply, the kind of activity that can be sandwiched between daily activities, without the need to carve out hours of time or invest in a back catalogue of whale music and their weight in incense.

There is a lot to admire in this self-help guide by Ross. It neatly draws on the author’s personal experiences without becoming a sob story, the writing style is light and the right side of informal and the activities are numerous (there is plenty of option to pick and choose between different mediative exercises). Ross also clearly notes at the start that this guide is not intended to replace that of a professional practitioner, a nice touch that goes a long way to showing Ross’ intentions with this book is to support, not cure.

What I would note here is that the contents of this book are by no means detailed and exhaustive. The fourteen chapters are each quite brief and the content fairly generic with an intention to be as inclusive as possible to all readers from all walks of life. Those wanting something better tailored to a particular challenge (for instance grief) will most likely not get all the answers they need from the ten or so pages dedicated to this topic. Also, and one that is more of an admin point, the references in the footer are not correctly formatted (it needs to be more than a website link, instead it should also feature article titles, authors etc).

14 Lessons in Happiness is a handy little guide when it comes to self-help and succeeds in being a book which can introduce new readers to the art of meditation. Something for your coffee table, this guide would serve as a great pick-me-up alongside a fresh hit of morning caffeine to start the day off right.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews: “14 Lessons in Happiness”

Purchase Link: “14 Lessons in Happiness” by Gina Ross (Amazon)

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A Christmas Exchange: The Most Wonderfully Low-Budget Film You’ll See This Year

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Christmas, Film, Humour, Review , , ,

I was flicking through the main streaming services, when I came across a television Christmas movie (the typically low-budget, “Hallmark” type). This one was called “A Christmas in London”.

(Although for reasons unexplained, the internet / outside the UK it’s called “A Christmas Exchange”, so let’s refer to it as that, or a “rip-off of The Holiday”.)

I went to watch the trailer online and was semi-instantly hooked.

This festive season, I’m going to share with you the tangled web of voice notes I bombarded my poor boyfriend with as I watched it in real time.

Couple of quick points: 1) editing this video took a stupid number of hours and 2) in trying to make this as accessible as possible, the closed caption tool I used…well it’s pants.

On that upbeat note, here you go!

I stand by all the comments made, other than the annoyance I forgot to verbally call out the shoddy scene setting and backdrops, including the montage that features this shot from “within the London Eye”.

And this other shot, within a phone booth:

There’s not even a phone in it! Good lord.

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Book Review: “Writing the Perfect Christmas TV Movie” by Fred Ray

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Rating: 4 Stars

Headline: If you enjoy Christmas movies as much as candy canes and baked cookies, you’ll love this

Review:

I love television Christmas movies, cheery 90-minute productions where cookies are always in the oven, mugs of hot chocolate plentiful on the counter, small town celebrations every other day. More festive than tinsel itself, I cannot get enough of them. When Fred Olen Ray’s book, Writing the Perfect Christmas Movie, appeared in my inbox I could not resist, jumped at the first chance I got.

Ray is no stranger to the industry of televising Christmas charm, in the space of ten years he has written fifteen Christmas films for television and directed several more. Having spent time with aspirational hopefuls wishing to break into the industry, Ray’s guide pitches itself as a one-stop shop for any budding scriptwriters of the genre with chapters that are intended to be all inclusive of the various considerations that need to be made when putting pen to paper. From story and act structure to considerations around budgets and casting and, the all important question, how Christmassy is too Christmassy? (In the world of festive films? It transpires there is no such thing.) In a short space of time Ray does an excellent job and condensing a genre and getting the main points across professionally and informally. You get a real sense of this being an author who genuinely wants to help others break into the industry.

Ray’s approach to producing this guide is consistent with an experienced professional; recounting past projects and how to avoid potential pitfalls with each approach. It is almost semi-autobiographic, from a place of passing on experience as opposed to providing a line-by-line tutorial of scriptwriting. There is a general expectation here that you can already write screenplays. To this end, Writing the Perfect Christmas Movie could be more likened to the Masterclass brand of video tutorials and may therefore cause disappointment to those hoping to see annotated case studies of previous scripts.

A choice purchase for those who are actively trying to pursue a career in scriptwriting whilst also sitting comfortably as my recommendation to any festive film-fans, Writing the Perfect Christmas Movie offers a rare peak under the covers of what makes the seasonal film genre tick.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: (AEB Reviews) Writing the Perfect Christmas Movie

Purchase Link: Writing the Perfect Christmas TV Movie

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Book Review: “Think in Color” by Sofia Santiago

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, Book Review, Humour, Review, Uncategorized , , , ,

Rating: 4 stars

Headline: Three simple mantras to change mindset and create lifelong opportunities? Sign me up!

Review:

Think in Color by Sophia Santiago is a self-betterment guide which puts forth a proposition for a new way of thinking, branded “ColorThinking”.

This approach is broken down into three mantras, also referred to as mental cones:

  1. Think “and” before “or”
  2. Think “how” before “no”
  3. Think “can be” before “is”

In all three scenarios theory and approach is backed-up by some interesting real-life and fictious scenarios, coupled with a step-by-step walkthrough of how things could have been better handled. A fourth section focuses on how to break away from external negative influences which may be impacting on your ability to implement a new way of thinking, and finally there is an advisory on the dangers of overuse; applying ColorThink to every scenario.

Santiago’s style of writing may not suit every reader, author jovialness bubbles to the service with the use of phrases including “just kidding!” and “a nice twist, ha?” In a self-help guide I prefer the tone of author voice to be informed and neutral; in places the over-informality of the writing distracts from the otherwise invaluable information and action items which the book is trying to impart.

As someone who works in Project Management, I really like what Think in Color is trying to do. Whether Santiago was aware when devising the concept of ColorThinking or not, the three mental cones have striking resemblance to Agile methodology, with its four simplistic principles for transforming and embedding efficient delivery. While the subject matter differs, the theory of ColorThink is similar in that respect and, at just over eighty pages in length, it is as equally digestible as another ground-breaking manifesto adopted by millions worldwide.

Think in Color convinces readers to reconsider the traditional black and white principles of thinking, offering a fresh perspective in a way that does not seem that different at all. I like it.

AEB Reviews

Links

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Think in Color”

Purchase Link: “Think in Color” (Amazon)

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Book Review: “The Customer Affinity Manifesto: How AI can Help Businesses Connect with Customer Emotions”

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, Book Review, Humour, Uncategorized , ,

Rating: 5 stars

Headline: For those who want to stay ahead of the increasingly steep and bloody curve of customer satisfaction, this book is a must

Review:

Once upon a time, loyalty was decided by large armies and costly landgrabs. A knight (or similar) would swear their loyalty and in turn all the sprawling hordes of peasants (or similar) underneath would also find themselves also pledged to that cause. But we are no longer in that period. In Westernised countries, gone are the knights, swept away the uneducated masses and in its place born is the freely accessible internet.

Joss Gillet’s guide to business, The Customer Affinity Manifesto: How AI can Help Businesses Connect with Customer Emotions, brings into conversation the need to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into brand building. Before all else, Gillet details two home truths, 1) AI is not going anywhere and 2) your business is not going anywhere without it. (The phrase “suck it up and move on” springs to mind.)

That said, Gillet is equally keen to not let AI become seen as a digital enemy, if anything in many cases throughout recent history he cites many examples of where AI systems have benefited improvements in marketing and how, before then, psychology experimentation was mimicking a lot of what we see today, be it on a much more labour-intensive scale. From telephone response times to the words and colours on a digital app, a better understanding of customer frustrations can lead to better targeted improvements. Happy customers equals happy economic growth.

Using his previous experience in the Telecommuncations sector to build a case study, Gillet identifies sixteen specific pain points (or ‘topics’) where customers feel particular disillusionment with their provider’s service. Gillet then presents the case that anyone can use deep learning to build a simple AI model to utilise freely accessible data on social media platforms, such as Twitter, to produce highly effective data charts and sentiment scores. Later on, there contains more detail about how business can implement effective AI, without needing to rely on the brand popularity of 10,000+ Tweet mentions a day.

Gillet’s book is well researched, well put together and visually is very engaging (the use of clearly explained graphs being welcomed sight). Granted, this would perhaps not be the best birthday present for someone selling the occasional bead necklace on Etsy, but for the truly aspirational, those who want to grow their business and stay ahead of the increasingly steep and bloody curve of customer satisfaction, this book is a must.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “The Customer Affinity Manifesto”

Purchase Link: “The Customer Affinity Manifesto” by Joss Gillet (Amazon)

Author Website: https://jossgillet.com/

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Book Review: “The Ultimate Workbook to Train Your Brain, Body and Spirit” by Steven Clinch

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Rating: 3 Stars

Headline: The only place where you can complete sudokus and hug trees: a little book of fun

Review:

The Ultimate Workbook to Train Your Brain, Body and Spirit by Steven Clinch is a neat little publication, at 129 pages there is by far more visual content in here than words (for context, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is around 77 thousand words in length, The Ultimate Workbook nears a modest 1000). It is a welcome relief from a lot of the denser material that exists in the market.

This publication provides the reader with 150 different exercises to conduct at their own pace. Activities include colouring in, wordsearches and short exercise routines, all of which are intended to trigger feelings of relaxation or deep thought as the reader is given the opportunity to pick (and subsequently tick off) the activities they’ve completed. For those needing a bit more guidance, answers to the puzzle activities are provided towards the back.

Be it sudoku or crosswords or even wordsearches, for a indecisive person like me I like the variation in activity and puzzle. I could pick and choose an activity based on how much time I had or how I was feeling on a particular day. I tended to reserve the ethical dilemma questions for when I had the most time and use the brain teasers as a bit of fun when spending time with friends and family. In this sense the book is perfect across a broad range of age groups.

The cover’s intense and dark imagery is easy to misconstrue, I had to take a second glance before recognising this as being aimed toward mental stimulation rather than physical. The solutions on the final pages have not taken into consideration accessibility – my eyesight is perfectly fine but I still found myself struggling to read some of the answers and I am not convinced the author should be making bold statements. Claiming the completion of the activities will create more brain neurons and therefore result in to a longer and happier life? The colouring lead to a happier half hour, let’s start there.

AEB Reviews

Links

Original Reedsy Discovery review: AEB Reviws – “The Ultimate Workbook”

Purchase link: “The Ultimate Workbook” (Amazon)

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Book Review: “NOW IS NEW: Stop Struggling. Start Living.”

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Book review on Katherine Chidiac’s self-help guide for young people, NOW IS NEW: Stop Struggling. Start Living.

Rating: 3 Stars

Headline: Self-help that doesn’t preach: A nifty guide for adolescent audiences seeking an introduction to the genre

Review:

NOW IS NEW Stop Struggling. Start Living. is a self-help guide that provides a reset point; asking its intended audience to take the time out to place themselves on pause, reflect on problem areas and gradually move to a place where they can change their attitudes and ultimately overcome them. The book is aimed towards the young person market, an age demographic that can be challenging to tackle.

Chidiac’s publication is filled with metaphors and anecdotes, which is incredibly useful when translating some of the more challenging concepts into easy-to-understand situations and scenarios. It was great to see the author making efforts to remove the stigma of there being a right or wrong way to process emotions, and the addition of simple line drawings help with making the content informal and visual so as to keep it engaging throughout.

The book is easily digestible and as you move through the chapters you feel a sense of progress acclimating in the final chapter “creating our next steps” where the author neatly summarises the content, reminding the reader that the pace of self-improvement is gradual and anything but quick. “The first step is not to become a YouTube star,” Chidiac says, “…[but] opening the app. Then, maybe we could create an account.”

This publication could have been improved in its placement of reflection exercises. Often the reader is recommended to undertake a mini-exercise in the middle of a chapter, such as completing part-started sentences or pausing to reflect or mediate. They are contained in the body of the text, often sandwiched between two analogies and an inspirational quote. There was times I became so engaged with the exercise that afterwards I lost my engagement of the content contained in that section. Reflection exercises would have sat better at the end of each chapter or at a clear break-point.

The book would have benefitted from consumer or editorial feedback on tone of voice. While agreeable on the whole, at points copy dipped into the overly familiar and I wasn’t too convinced by the use of curse words for something aimed at young adults, even if they were concealed by use of asterisks. I would also have liked to have seen a clear statement of this book’s intended readership age range in the introduction.

A nifty book that provides young people with a gentle introduction to self-betterment.

AEB Reviews

Links:

Reedsy Discovery Review: Now is New (AEB Reviews)

Purchase Link: Now is New

Author page: https://www.nowisnew.co.uk/

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The Elizabeth Line: An Alternative Review

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Humor, Humour, London, Travel, Uncategorized , , ,

Here’s a quick run-through of what happened when I went on London Underground’s newest service, the Elizabeth line.

The first thing I was aware of when I descended the escalators at Paddington was the whizzy LED signs.

I don’t know why, but I found them mesmerising, like a lava lamp. It was also 7:30am and I hadn’t had coffee, which I acknowledge may have been a contributing factor. Nudged by another commuter in that classic “get-on-or-move-on” fashion, I hopped onto the next Eastbound train.

Now the thing is…well, I wanted to illustrate that even though it was very busy at Paddington station the train was pretty quiet. But, equally, I didn’t want it to be obvious I was taking random photos of the train. You can see my predicament. So what do you get?

A slightly burred picture of a door.

It really was a classically Alice dilemma.

Oh, thumbs up for the seat coverings by the way.

And the floor? I mean, I wouldn’t say I’d be eating off it, but by London standards it was fairly squeaky.

I just wish I could say it was seam-LESS! (Get it? Because there’s a joining line? Well, I thought it was witty).

And here’s a photo of Custom House, before a-la-mosh pit I got scooped up by corporate commuters and funnelled toward the ticket gates.

*Then Alice did actual work stuff at the ExCel conference centre*

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On leaving the ExCel I was running back what felt like the thickest black jacket in the hottest day. To say I was a bit toasty was an understatement, I was effectively drowning in a pool of sweat and free pencils.

Honestly I was so relieved to be somewhere with air conditioning and seating I forgot to take any photos. Minor detail.

It was probably owing to this (realising at Bond Street I hadn’t taken any photos and unable to, thanks to the copious amounts of free pencils filling my hands) that I became very obsessed with scoring a selfie with the Underground sign at Paddington. That, and in part because of the very strong coffee I knocked back before leaving the ExCel.

Ten attempts later (not kidding), I settled with what I got and shambled upstairs to find out the outbound train I’d been racing to get was actually a very slow train so ended up loitering around Paddington for 40 minutes for the train which, it turns out, all my colleagues were on as well. None of them were interested in my pencils, only moaning about the cleanliness of the toilets at Paddington. For a whole hour.

So yeah…

The Elizabeth line! Clean (enough), mesmerising signs (if you’re suffering from caffeine withdrawal) and just enough air con to stop you gagging on the stench of someone else’s body odour. What more could you want?!

Oh, and it’s actually super quick to get places. Minor detail.

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You’re Welcome

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Commute, Coronavirus, Cotswolds, Culture, Europe, Event, food, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Review, Social Media, sophistication, Staycation, Tourist, Travel, Uncategorized, Vacation, Young Professional , , , ,

I sent a thank you card to one of the restaurants I frequented when I made a solo staycation to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

(God knows what I wrote inside, I can barely remember what I ate for lunch five minutes ago.)

Whatever its contents were, The Northern Whig clearly enjoyed them enough to prop it up on their fancy bar and share it on their Instagram story.

Caption reads: Such a thoughtful thank-you card from @aeb.thewriter

You’re welcome guys, hope to visit again soon. x

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