Book Review: Alphatudes by Michele Wahlder & Giveaway

Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude by Michele Wahlder

Paperback, 128 pages

Life Possibilities Publishing

January 15, 2010

★★★½☆☆

Genre: Inspirational, Self-Help

Source: Received from Publicist  for Review

“In Alphatudes: The Alphabet of Gratitude, Michele Wahlder reveals the unexpected and simple secret to living a joyful life: gratitude. In a world obsessed with negativity, we must deliberately choose to focus our attention toward the positive.

The good news is the homework is already done! Alphatudes utilizes your earliest grade school victory—the ABCs—to elicit a sustainable shift in your thinking and outlook on life.”

I want to start out by saying this is not the typical type of book that I read, but I found it interesting.

I think first I should explain the layout of this book. Each letter has 4 pages devoted to it. The first 2 pages are consumed by a picture with the letter being represented hidden within the image. There is also a quote about the word being represented. The 3rd page is a narrative about how this word/concept can contribute to how you feel and making your life more positive. The 4th page has a 2 or 3 line prayer.

The pages of this book are beautiful to look at! Each letter has a corresponding image that helps to support the word or phrase contained within those pages. The colors are bright and I lost myself for awhile in how beautiful the pages are. I flipped through just to look before I ever sat down to read.

If you are a person who is religious, the prayers might be something you find more useful than I did. I read all of the words and took some meaning from them, but not being a religious person, I think some of the purpose was lost on me. I don’t think the prayers would be something that would be offensive to anyone – they appear to be non-denominational and are just some beautiful words.

I would like to share some of my favorite lines (and some of the most thought-provoking) in this book.
• Hope – “Hope is reduced to wishful thinking only when it is not accompanied by intentional action” (pg 38).
• Joy – “When we release our past regrets and our attempts to control the future, we are free to experience the joy that exists now” (pg 46).
• Laughter – “Laughing is not a shirking off of the importance of an issue, but rather a decision not to ignore the amusement buried within the seriousness of a challenge” (pg 54).
• Passion – “Fulfilling our passions is not a selfish act. Quite the contrary, expanding upon our passions is a service we provide to others” (pg 70).

I like the quote about passion the most because it rationalizes the time I spend on blogging!

While some of the words in this book feel corny, overall there is a very positive message and worth the short time it takes to read through it. It was a breeze and I read through it in one sitting. If nothing else, you will come out of reading this with a smile. For some this book will help more than others, but I am glad that I read it – it was just overall a beautiful book.

You can visit the Alphatudes website for more information about the book or to purchase it. As an added bonus for buying the book, you will be able to download for free “Grace and Gratitude”, a song by Olivia Newton-John.

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

• Story Circle Book Reviews
• Simply Stacie

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia

Find Michelle Wahlder: Website 

 

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I am offering my gently used ARC copy of this book for a giveaway. This is open to US residents only and runs thru March 27th 2010. To enter just leave your email in the comments below.

+1 entry if you are a follower of this blog

Good Luck.

3/27/10 - UPDATE - the winner of this giveaway is...LibraryPat! Congrats.




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