Intriguing and pioneering, but business neophytes should proceed with caution.
An entrepreneur’s ambitious plan for launching a business in 30 days.
The tantalizing promise of this engaging book—that it’s possible to start a business by spending one hour a day for 30 days—sounds too good to be true. But serial entrepreneur Dontha (365+ Prompts for a Gratitude Journal, 2019, etc.) isn’t joking. Touting “agile entrepreneurship,” a process he borrowed from software developers, Dontha cleverly structures the book with 30 chapters, each highlighting a discrete business-building area or task. Every chapter begins with the story of a different small-scale entrepreneur who employed the agile approach to succeed, providing welcome credibility. This is followed by specific steps required to complete the chapter’s task along with a quick “self-assessment,” essentially quizzing readers on their progress. What’s impressive about this method is that the author does indeed cover virtually every basic element of a business startup; embedded in the 30 days are principles of sales, customer service, human resources, logistics, management, marketing, and accounting and finance. Splitting the tasks into 30 days makes the potentially overwhelming challenge of getting a business up and running seem manageable, and the author has a gift for simplifying complex tasks by dividing them into microtasks, each to be completed within a certain time frame. Yet this is where some readers may take issue with the notion of agile entrepreneurship. Early on, the author describes agile entrepreneurs as believing in “Fast over methodical. Done now over done well.…If you’re agile, you get to revenue as fast as you can.” Sounds great—but sometimes speed works against quality. For example, the “agile approach to business branding” suggests devoting 60 minutes to three subtasks: define brand identity elements (10 minutes), create or outsource a logo (30 minutes), and write a tagline (20 minutes). Another chapter suggests that a business plan can be completed in 60 minutes. These time frames may seem unrealistic—if not frankly unfeasible—for a business that hopes for a quality output. Still, Dontha has found a unique, creative way to get a handle on the business startup process.
Intriguing and pioneering, but business neophytes should proceed with caution.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73346-513-7
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Eusophix International Corporation
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
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
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