Friday, August 10, 2012

Miss Peregrine's...


Okay, this book was a little interesting.  Definitely not as scary as the cover makes it seem...The author uses a bunch of real-life, weird pictures of kids, and writes a story around them.  The story is that the kids all have different kinds of "magical powers" (i.e., Peculiar Children).  As another reader wrote, it's like X-men for 10 year olds.  Not as much scary action.  There's some good background on the "Home" and how it came to be, and you get to know a few of the kids pretty well.  The beginning and end of the book were both good - the middle seemed to drag a little bit. 

It appears as though this is going to be the first in a series - the story doesn't actually end with the finale in the book, so you know there's going to be more.  As much as I like the Rick Riordan series, I imagine this one turning into something like that, only with a lot more fantasy, and less Greek/Egyptian gods.  And, written more for a pre-teen audience than a teen audience.  However, if you're looking for a quick read, with an interesting premise, this one is great.  Not to mention the pictures - some of which are enough to give you the heebie-jeebie's themselves...

Onward...

Howard Shultz was the Founder of Starbucks and Chairman/CEO until the early 2000's, when he stepped down as CEO (but stayed as Chairman).  After about 5 years (in 2007), he saw that Starbucks culture was changing and it was no longer profitable or really a fun place to work.  He stepped back in as President/CEO, and effected a large turnaround of the company.  This book is his chronicle of that process.  It's sort of an insider's tale of what makes Starbucks tick, and they were able to turn around the company in 2008 and 2009.

As far as business books go, it's very readable.  Lots of good stories, as well as good leadership principles for business leaders.  I found myself wanting to go into a Starbucks, just to see if the things he was saying they changed really were true at my local store.  Lots of the book focused on the guiding principle of Starbucks - to have the best-tasting, boldest coffee on the market.  Again, if I was a coffee drinker, I'd want to experiment and try it out.  Alas, I'll just have to take his word for it...