Reviewed by Edith Wairimu for Readers' Favorite

Pajama Paydays: How to Make the Internet Work for You by Hwayda Kater is an enlightening read that sheds light on the online job market and how anyone can thrive in it. According to Kater, job security in the corporate sector in the modern world is almost like a mirage. With constant rumors of job cuts, today’s employee is faced with constant anxiety. This volatility has bred a new location-independent market that is growing every day. Pajama Paydays guides the reader while transitioning from the corporate world to the internet-based sphere. Kater tackles topics that may seem daunting to a starter. These include the products/ services that a person can offer, how to market an online-based business and how to use leverage for maximization.

If you are just curious or you are seriously considering joining the online market, reading Pajama Paydays by Hwayda Kater will provide you with much needed insight. The book is written in a way that will prove informative to both the starter and anyone who is already established in this market. Kater’s advice is easily comprehensible and applicable. Pajama Paydays also contains a refreshing depth since the book is based on the author’s own journey. The book’s content is dotted by engaging illustrations borrowed from Kater’s experience and observations, which makes it even more thought-provoking. Still, the author is careful to balance the reader’s expectations while instilling hope that transition is possible. I was happy that it was not just another book propagating a get-rich-quick mentality. Definitely worth your time!

Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite

Mayur Ramgir's Evolve like a Butterfly: A Metamorphic Approach to Leadership is a groundbreaking work on leadership with powerful lessons inspired by the life cycle of a butterfly. A butterfly! The title of the book got me intrigued and I was wondering “Why a butterfly” when there are thousands of complex and beautiful creatures that can be used as an example. But, surprisingly, it turned out to be the most excellent and succinct metaphor I have encountered in works on leadership. Starting with an unusual definition of leadership, the author shows how the life of a butterfly can be the perfect example of the kind of leadership that brings lasting change, highlighting powerful elements of leadership that are visible in the growth process of this insect. This is a book that will change the way readers look at life, at leadership, and how they approach problem solving and their business.

Evolve like a Butterfly: A Metamorphic Approach to Leadership is written in a light, popular style, accessible to readers with different reading skills, filled with real life examples that make the concepts easily digestible. This book is replete with the wisdom that readers need to lead their lives and to lead others, and the author writes with confidence, which indicates his mastery of the subject. I particularly loved the Leadership Development Framework, modeled after the different stages of the evolution of the butterfly. Readers will understand the different stages in their growth toward effective leadership and find the tools that will allow them to grow in confidence, trusting in themselves, and taking control. There are wonderful thoughts that can accompany readers in this book and one of my favorites was: “Convince yourself that you can do it and the rest of the world will automatically be convinced.” Mayur Ramgir's book is a gift for leaders and everyone who wants to make an impact on the lives of others.

Reviewed by Tracy A. Fischer for Readers' Favorite

In an excellent new work by author, serial entrepreneur, recruiter and speaker Rikka Brandon, Hire Power: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know To Hire Awesome People is a guide that business owners will find themselves turning to time and again, as they strive to develop the teams that they want and need. This book provides an excellent set of principles for anyone in hiring, from those who are relatively inexperienced in the human resources field to seasoned professionals. The book is loaded with practical and easy to follow advice on how to attract, find, and engage the workers you need, as well as information on the very best way to conduct interviews so that you know you are getting what you truly want in a new employee.

I very much enjoyed Hire Power: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know To Hire Awesome People. Author Rikka Brandon has done a stellar job in imparting a wealth of information for her readers, and has certainly written a book that will be useful to anyone that takes part in the hiring process, both now and well into the future. The book is extremely well laid out and provides step by step advice in finding that perfect match for your team. Many leaders would find this book to be the exact thing they are looking for if they are struggling in any way with their hiring process. I am pleased to be able to highly recommend Hire Power: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know To Hire Awesome People, and will certainly be on the look out for any other helpful books written by Rikka Brandon in the future!

Reviewed by Sefina Hawke for Readers' Favorite

Madison Avenue Manslaughter (An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profit-Hungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies) by Michael Farmer is a non-fiction book on business and finance. This is a book that would appeal most to an adult audience of those who either work in or are interested in the advertising industry. Advertising agencies are facing destruction due to increased workloads and declining fees, but there is still hope for them. Michael Farmer exposes the real problems that advertising agencies face in the modern world, and shows how to overcome these problems in order to fix the advertising industry and make it sustainable. What would happen if the advertising industry collapsed on itself with no hope of revival?

As a blogger and freelance writer, I found Madison Avenue Manslaughter by Michael Farmer to be a very interesting book. Michael Farmer clearly displays both his knowledge and expertise in writing this book in such a way that those without professional advertising or marketing experience could still understand it. Prior to reading this book, I had not considered just how close the advertising and marketing industries are to collapse. I liked the way that the author not only unveiled the problem and potential problems, but offered ways to solve the crisis in a realistic manner; his writing style made the material both easy to understand and interesting. The fact that everything was backed up with clear evidence only added more proof to the author’s ability to not only recognize the problem, but also come up with real solutions. After reading the book, the only question I was left with was: why have these solutions not already been implemented?

Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite

Start-Ups are hard. The Start-Up J Curve: The Six Steps to Entrepreneurial Success by Howard Love is a comprehensive guide that speaks about a start-up’s evolution and helps readers to know what to do and what not to do, and makes the path to success efficient and smooth. The book shows the pattern in which a start-up unfolds so that entrepreneurs are aware of the pattern and their odds of success will increase. Reading this book will have a positive effect and assure you that other entrepreneurs have faced the same difficult issues. The Start-Up J Curve suggests how the value of the enterprise tends to decline over the first few phases, and the primary value creation develops during the latter stages.

The concept of The Start-Up J Curve is helpful and useful to all those who are on a start-up program and need to communicate it to a wider audience. I found the ideas and suggestions valid and valuable, and they will prepare you to meet the inevitable challenges as and when they arise. The author also speaks about the many myths that are associated with start-ups, and points out areas where the thinking patterns and beliefs need to be altered to become successful. This book will definitely help readers become familiar with the start-up path. It is a good read for all those who are planning to start up a business. The book is honest, direct, and insightful, and touches on all the topics required when it comes to start-ups.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Don't Sell Me, Tell Me is a non-fiction business/finance book written by Greg Koorhan. Koorhan is a filmmaker and the founder of a digital marketing firm that specializes in creating marketing content for entrepreneurs and businesses. With so many businesses out there competing for the same limited market, what can a company do to stand out of the crowd? Koorhan suggests storytelling, and his argument is based on mankind's centuries-old love of stories. The public is wise to even the most inspired sales pitches and spins, he argues, so why not entertain them as you build your customer base? Stories can get your customers personally involved in your story, your product and your company, and creating that story is not nearly as difficult as most believe. Koorhan discusses the benefits of creating a story, the different basic types of stories, and how to get started with your own. He explains what structure and plot are, and shares the universal plots that most stories share. Then he shows the reader how to mine his/her personal/professional life and business experiences to create a compelling story that will get customers involved. Koorhan provides a number of downloadable worksheets as well as a workbook for working on the topics and suggested assignments within the text.

Greg Koorhan's non-fiction business/finance book, Don't Sell Me, Tell Me, is proof in itself of how a well-told story can engage and excite even the most skeptical audience. Most of us, business owners and self-employed professionals alike, love stories, but actually creating one is viewed as a totally different matter. Koorhan's story shows just how easy it can be to write that story. He breaks down every step in the process and gives convincing arguments why those pesky things like structure and plot really do have to be ironed out a bit before sitting down and creating your masterpiece. This book is a must-read not only for business owners, but for anyone who's dreamed of seeing their work published or even hoped to pass that compulsory English 101 course. Best of all, Koorhan's easy teaching style and enthusiasm for his topic make the process of story-telling seem a lot less like suffering and more of a fun, creative exercise. I had a great time reading Don't Sell Me, Tell Me and working through the author's suggestions. Don't Sell Me, Tell Me is most highly recommended.

Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers' Favorite

The Invisible Advantage: How to Create a Culture of Innovation by Soren Kaplan is a book on business organization and management centered around creating a culture of innovation, as the title suggests. The Invisible Advantage begins with a brief introduction on the topic of what it actually means to be “innovative” and the importance of it in today’s business world, especially the technology industry. The book is then broken down into several chapters, each focusing on a certain aspect of this such as how to be a “disruptive innovator,” how to motivate people and employees, how to create a culture of free thinking, how to strategize and be effective at creating this culture, measurements and metrics, and much more. Throughout the book, Soren provides real examples of companies who have successfully created such a culture, along with a detailed explanation and background information on each.

I think innovation is necessary to thrive in the modern business world, especially in an ever-changing IT industry, where trends and advances seem to happen daily. The Invisible Advantage by Soren Kaplan provides a map on how to do so and create a culture of innovation. Soren emphasizes the importance of maintaining a competitive edge and the crucial role that innovation plays in this. I also liked how Soren has presented real, live examples of this in organizations which I found very helpful. The writing is crisp and the content is broken down into easy-to-grasp chunks. It also is clear that Soren has a lot of experience in this area and that comes across in the case analysis of some of the examples.

Reviewed by Charles Remington for Readers' Favorite

Predictive Analytics by Eric Siegel is a detailed but readable overview of a somewhat complex math-driven prediction technique which uses sophisticated computer programs to analyse and extrapolate information from large amounts of personal data - data which is generally available from internet, social media, and company records. Writing in a non-technical, anecdotal style, the author covers a great deal of ground, providing a clear picture of the current state of the science. Predictive Analytics (PA) is used in a variety of disciplines such as stock market trading, fraud detection, policing, insurance, medicine and, probably the aspect that we are more familiar with, marketing. He explains how the algorithms work, the benefits, pitfalls and sometimes unexpected side effects of PA; for instance, how prejudice can be perpetuated by using some types of data, how predicting death can cause unwelcome complications with health insurance, how what you post on social media can have unforeseen effects on whether you will be accepted for a credit card, have your tax return audited, or cause a restaurant you may have mentioned to be inspected. There is a large section on the processes that enabled IBM to create Watson, the machine that won the quiz show Jeopardy, and also a good deal of information on machine learning and the prospects of artificial intelligence. Written primarily for the non-professional, the book also includes links and appendices for those who would like to study the subject further.

I fully expected Predictive Analytics to be a difficult read, but was pleasantly surprised at the style and accessibility of the work. It is easy to follow and should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about how the personal information which all of us supply routinely to service providers like public utilities, banks and Facebook, vendors like Amazon, and our employers is used. I am sure that we have all experienced some of the results of data mining, where adverts quickly appear on our social media pages as soon as we have looked at some item or other on the net. But some of the aspects of PA I found to be quite disturbing, like the way employers such as Hewlett Packard are using PA to analyse their employee records to predict which employee is likely to leave the company, or how health insurance companies are able to use PA to analyse their clients’ claim histories to establish who is likely to die. Eric Siegel points out that data is the new oil and that PA is gaining pace and sophistication at an unprecedented rate. He goes on to suggest that control legislation is urgently required in some areas, but in the meantime I strongly suggest you read this book - forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite

The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness by Lolly Daskal is a book that every leader needs to read, one with the advice that many growing leaders never have the chance to hear. As I read this book, I thought about all the men and women who have driven me, and the patterns outlined in this well-crafted and compelling work surface very powerfully in their lives. Drawing from popular psychology, philosophy, and professional experience, the author unearths traits in leaders who fail because they rely solely on their skills and on what has consistently worked for them — which might not be relevant anymore.

In well-crafted prose and providing wonderful insights, the author illustrates how our skills and talents can become stumbling blocks on our way to greatness. And did you know that the overconfident leader can suddenly become the imposter, that the person who builds on truth can become a master at using lies to lead others, that the explorer can become the exploiter, and that the gifts that make us rise can turn against us when we fail to discern what really makes us grow and connect more intimately with ourselves and with others? The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness is a ground-breaking work on leadership, a book that showcases the author’s leadership skills and experience so brilliantly that it will provoke a revolution in the hearts of up-and-coming leaders, and help those leading others to be more aware of the dangers that come with their skills. Lolly Daskal writes with confidence and leaves the reader in no doubt that she is a master of the subject. It’s perfect leadership psychology.

Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite

Unbarred Innovation: A Pathway to Greatest Discoveries by Mayur Ramgir is a unique look at entrepreneurship and having confidence in yourself and your ideas. There is nothing that you cannot do. Many times, people are confused or lack confidence in their ideas. So they back off and return to their ordinary lives. However, if the most innovative people of our time had thought the same way, we might not have this amount of advancement in our time. What I really liked about this book is the fact that the advice given can be applied to anyone and any idea.

This advice is not restricted to one industry, so to speak. Mayur Ramgir gives sound advice on how your idea can be the next big thing too, if only you give yourself the chance to explore it. There is nothing too complicated or technical in this book that you cannot understand. You will not find anything that will confuse you. It is the best motivational book I have ever read. It has a constant uplifting theme backed by good word choice.

I feel that Mayur Ramgir did a phenomenal job by providing the general public with a confidence boost. His use of real innovators' success stories also helps to back up the whole theme of the book. I would highly recommend this book to people who are lost and need direction in their careers. This will definitely help them with very good, sound advice.