A magnate’s friendly and accessible account of how he rose from rags to riches.
The founder of a junk-removal company combines a memoir with a business guide.
In his nonfiction debut, Scudamore, self-described as the most normal guy in the world, lays out parts of his life story and the grounding business principles that helped make his junk-removal company, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, into a multimillion-dollar behemoth that’s on track to become a billion-dollar enterprise. Growing up as an awkward outsider in Canada and falling short of graduating from high school, the author at one point in a drive-through line saw a truck sign advertising a trash-hauling service and thought, “I could do that.” Over the next two decades, he steadily grew his fleet of junk-hauling trucks, broadened his networking, and slowly built his company into “the FedEx of junk-removal.” The story delivers a classic, intriguing business arc. Scudamore is a natural raconteur, smoothly pivoting from his own “ordinary guy” status to the formidable triumphs of the company he started from nothing, with almost no money, while at loose ends for what else to do. There is of course an enormous amount of serendipity that can never be duplicated in almost all such accounts. But his “If I can do it, so can you” approach rescues much of this book—written with Williams (co-author: Pendulum, 2012, etc.)—from the smugness that usually afflicts business success stories. Still, Scudamore can’t resist doling out the kind of platitudes that are endemic to this genre (“Possibilities are the beginning of every adventure,” for instance, or “Let yourself be shaped by the people who love you the most,” or “I believe things always work out for the best”). Fortunately, the volume evens out any sententiousness with plucky optimism and winning anecdotes from the years the mogul spent with his colleagues building the business, including the tactics he has used to motivate his increasing number of managers and partners. The end result may well inspire budding entrepreneurs.
A magnate’s friendly and accessible account of how he rose from rags to riches.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0108-6
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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