Worlds Collide: Books available for review

I’m interrupting my regularly scheduled book chatter for something completely different…

For as much as I talk about my personal life here at RBA, I have deliberately left a bit of a separation between my blog life and my “real” life. While I share bits of my personal life on the blog, I don’t really share my blog with many people I know, other than my guy. This has mostly to do with my protectiveness toward my blog, and my need to feel completely at liberty to cover the topics I want and review the books I want, without feeling self-conscious or inhibited by concerns about what family or friends may say.

However, one person with whom I have shared a lot about my blog is my friend, boss, and now client, Arlene Harder. She has always been supportive of what I do here on the blog, and what I have learned from it over the last year and a half has helped me so much with the work that I do for her.

I started working for Arlene about 10 years ago, when she advertised for an assistant to help out with her website, CancerOnline. Arlene is a licensed psychotherapist, and was a founding member of the Wellness Community—Foothills, in Pasadena, CA. The CancerOnline site grew out of her involvement with the Wellness Community, and for many years it provided support and information for people with cancer and their families.

Over time, this site evolved into a network of sites, with Support4Change as her main site. My role has also changed over time, and I now maintain Arlene’s sites, as well as her blog, and help her with her e-newsletter. This shift has allowed Arlene to spend more time writing books and articles which are focused on personal growth, recovering from perfectionism, and healing strained or broken relationships.

Personally, I’m not a big “self-help” person, but Arlene is a talented writer, and has a way of framing ideas and offering down-to-earth methods to help a person create change in their life. I can honestly say that previously, the only book in this genre that I’ve ever given to anyone (my sisters) was her Letting Go of Our Adult Children: When What We Do Is Never Enough. (Now out of print, but available free online at Support4Change.)

More recently, Arlene wrote Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life: Stop Wishing Your Life Were Different and Make it Happen. Last week we were brainstorming on ways she can get greater exposure for the book. One way, of course, is through Amazon reviews, and though a number of copies have been sold, there have not been any reviews written.

I told her that while the people who visit this blog don’t come expecting talk about books like Ask Yourself Questions, I do know that like me, many of this blog’s visitors have diverse interests, and read all sorts of books. I offered to write this post here at RBA to ask if any of you would be interested in receiving a free review copy of Ask Yourself Questions and post a review on Amazon.

Here is the description of Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life:

Dedicated to helping readers move towards their goals, this motivational guide shows how to ask direct questions to uncover strengths and draw upon past successes.

The answers to such questions as: Am I following my dreams of someone else’s? Is there someone I need to forgive in order to reach my goal? and What qualities of the human spirit do I need? allow for penetration into the inner self to discover calls to action and deep-seated desires. Other questions offer support for readers who become stuck or lost along the journey. Complementing the questions are metaphors and stories, offering accessible guidance to uncovering answers.

Clear and insightful, these questions and exercises pave the path for self-improvement.

So, if anyone is interested in reading Ask Yourself Questions, please let me know in the comments below, or email me directly at reneesbookaddiction AT gmail DOT com. I will mail a print copy of the book to you. If you would like to learn a little more about Arlene Harder, check out her bio. Read more about Support4Change, here.

It’s a little nerve-wracking for me to put my work life out here like this. It is seriously out of my comfort zone. However, my pride in being associated with Support4Change and the great work that Arlene does, makes it something I felt like I needed to do.