Our Summer Reading List

The long days, the warm weather, and the smell of hot dogs cooking on grills everywhere can only mean one thing: summer is on the way and more than welcome after a long snowy winter season. And just because we aren’t kids revving up for summer vacation doesn’t mean that we can’t take part in all that summer brings, including the summer reading list.  Whether your lounging by the pool, laid-back in a lawn chair, or even lucky enough to go on vacation, take a few moments to unwind with a good book on our summer reading list.  We’ve picked five great reads perfect for the lazy days ahead that will help you become and even better version of you by fall.

To Feel Good About You

Many of us could use a self esteem boost especially in the summer when smaller outfits and swimsuit season can make even the most confident feel self conscious. Ten Days to Self Esteem by David D. Burns, M.D. offers steps to get you feeling better about yourself in just a couple of weeks. The tools in this book will help to give you a boost in ten days and improve your self esteem for a lifetime.

To Feel Good About You..And Make Them Feel Good About You Too

Make Every Man Want You by Marie Forleo is a fun read that shows you how to become irresistible to the opposite sex by first becoming irresistible to you.The goal of this book can be summed up in the tagline: How to Be So Irresistible You’ll Barely Keep from Dating Yourself!

 

To Feel Good From the Inside Out

The 7 Pillars of Health by Don Colbert, MD teaches natural ways to preserve and restore your health. No crash diets here. Just real, practical methods to laying the foundation for healthy practices.

 

 

To Stop Daydreaming About That Other Life

Platinum by Aliya S. King explores the good, the bad, and the ugly, well a lot more of the bad and the ugly about the life of wives of hip-hop stars. We expect this will be a fun, juicy read and comes out in July, just in time for peak summer reading.

To Just Get Away From it All

Elin Hildebrand has become the queen of summer beach novels with her casts of characters living and visiting Nantucket island. The Beach Club revolves around various characters whose lives collide at an exclusive hotel as the summer season unfolds from May to October.

P.S. We love the books on our list but we always want to hear from new, self published authors. Email us with review requests of non-fiction, self help oriented books.

Add to our list! What are you reading this summer?

Finally..Real Men Speak Out

In “Finally..Real Men Speak Out: What Real Men Want Women to Know” by Deborah, men speak their feelings about women and relationships in their own words. A refreshing change from the numerous monthly magazine articles that simply suggest different ways to please your man, Deborah asks the men she interviews their feelings on a variety of relationship topics. Men put their true feelings on paper and discuss what they believe to be the good the bad and the ugly when it comes to women.

Instead of reading a woman’s  interpretation of what men want, or applying one man’s opinion about what men want to all men, Deborah asks the questions  and lets the men answer for themselves. She brings in men ranging in age from 21 to 57 to answer each question and in doing so gives the reader a real look at male thought from a wide range of perspectives.

Men in the book answer questions openly about their perception of feminity, their thought process, the traits that they find attractive and unattractive, and the fact that they too can be deeply hurt by a woman’s actions. Through”Real Men Speak Out” Deborah dispels the myth that men are thoughtless and insensitive and gives a better understanding of men and relationships by giving us a chance to  listen to men’s voices.

Find out more about what men want tonight in a conversation with Deborah at Bliss Cafe at 5:30 pm.

Want to be attractive? Confidence is key.

Courtesy of soei_cs_82

One of the most important parts of being attractive to the opposite sex is feeling good about yourself. One of the consistent themes present in discussions of what men look for in women is confidence. Actress Demi Moore speaks in this article about feeling sexier as she grows older, not an easy feat for a woman working in today’s youth obsessed entertainment industry. When asked if she felt sexy Demi replied:

“I do. Because I feel loved. That’s what sexy is – it’s feeling good from the inside.  When you feel sexy or sensuous, you naturally want to open up and give, and I think that comes from being able to receive love and desire.”

Does feeling sexy always come from feeling loved? How do you restore your confidence when you aren’t feeling as good about yourself from the inside out?

5 Things You May Not Know About Men

In keeping with May’s book topic, What Men Want, I found a short, interesting clip with relationship expert, Matt Titus, discussing five secrets about what men actually think.  A couple of these secrets according to Matt are a little surprising, others aren’t actually secrets, just more of the same things that we’ve already heard before. According to Matt, most men:

1. Are insecure. This is one that we have probably all heard before. Matt goes into a little more detail as to how this effects their relationships with women.
2. Don’t like girl’s night out. This sentiment is somewhat surprising but seems to speak to the insecurity issue.
3. Want to be monogamous. However, he adds that the desire for monogamy only comes with being with the right woman.
4. Don’t want you to bring up committment. This shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone.
5. Values your opinion.   According to Matt,  most men care very deeply about what their significant other thinks.

What are your thoughts on this list? In your experience, is Matt on point or way off in his assesment of the male mind?

Don’t forget to join us on May 10 for our next book club meeting where we will hear more about what real men want.

We’re following the signs; Now lets find out what men want.

Author Jakki Wienecke

We had a great networking event last Monday with the opportunity to hear valuable information from author Jakki Wienecke as she talked about her book, “Follow the Signs: An Interactive Guide to Understanding Your Life’s Purpose”.

View some highlights from the event on the right side of the page or click here for pictures. Next month we will be discussing “Finally Real Men Speak Out: What Real Men Want Women to Know” by DeBorah. Start reading your book now and mark your calendar for May 10 because you won’t want to miss this one! If you can’t make it to the event, read along with us and participate in the online discussion.

Follow the Signs-Monday April 12th

 Oftentimes, people will pray or search for signs to let them know that they are making the right decisions and traveling down the right path. In her book ”Follow the Signs: An Interactive Guide to Understanding Your Life’s Purpose” , Jakki Padovano-Wienecke shows us that many of those signs are right in front of our faces, and that we must learn to recognize those signs in order to realize our true purpose in life.

Padovano-Wienecke’s goal through her book is to help us to decode some of those signs that we may have missed in our past to gain a better understanding of our present and our soul’s true purpose. By learning to recognize those signs, we are better able to get our lives back on track and move along the path that we were meant to follow.  From major events to seemingly insignificant encounters, Padovano-Wienecke teaches you to view every encounter as significant and a chance to learn one of life’s lessons.

She also calls into question one of the tools that is cited most often as a key to success: positive thinking. While she maintains that a positive outlook is essential, positive thinking alone will not help you to steer your life in the right direction. Rather, positive thinking must be combined with an awareness of self and action based on understanding the signs and messages you receive to be fully effective.

The book also includes practical steps that you can take to get more in touch with your own signs including mediation and journaling.

Do you agree with the author? Can not recognizing the signs get you off track and away from your life’s purpose? How much of your success is due to positive thinking? What signs led you to understand your soul’s purpose?

Join us on Monday April 12 from 5:30 to 7:30pm at Bliss Coffee and Wine Bar in Bel Air, MD to hear the author speak more about following the signs and to continue the discussion.

Love Addicted

“..Nothing has so challenged my life like my addiction to relationships and men. Yes I confess, my drugs of choice were love and relationships.” -Debora Ricks, Love Addicted

Love can be beautiful, enduring, precious, and sometimes painful, but it is seldom portrayed as addictive. In her book Love Addicted: One Woman’s Spiritual Journey Through Emotional Dependency,  DeBora Ricks confronts the addictive side of relationships through her own journey from emotional dependency to healing and self love.  

Fueled by the void left by an abusive father, and the devastation of being raped by a stranger,  DeBora attempts to feed her need for love and acceptance through a series of relationships with men. The destructive side of the addiction doesn’t evolve as the result of the men themselves.  She refers to these men as teachers, each one showing her something new about life. The damaging part of DeBora’s addiction comes from her neglecting to learn to love herself while chasing the high that she gains from male love and attention. With the realization that love will be forever unsatisfying until she learns to love herself, she is finally able to embark upon a journey toward recovery.

DeBora Ricks has found the courage and eloquence to put her journey into words, yet she represents so many women and men that are struggling with a similar addiction. Just like an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or gambling, “love addiction” allows the addict to momentarily escape the issues haunting her by constantly running toward temporary satisfaction.:

“…all addictions are enlisted to help us escape from reality, from feelings of inadequacy, insufficiency, hopelessness. Relationships were my drug of choice, the place into which I scuttled in hopes of silencing the resounding inner voice that alone I was not up to the challenges of life.”

As our first book to appear on the new Books of Significance blog, we would like readers and event attendees to weigh in on the issue of love addiction. Do you believe that being addicted or “in love with love” can be as destructive as other types of addictions? How do you heal from the pain of the past without falling into destructive relationship patterns?

Next Month’s Read: Follow the Signs- An Interactive Guide to Understanding Your Life’s Purpose, Jakki Padovano-Wienecke

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!