Book Review: The Noticer

I like to read and I also like to try and blog a little bit....I know I have been bouncing back and forth for a while keeping up with it, but when I cam upon Book Sneeze I thought I have died and gone to heaven.  Review books and blog about them, the best of both worlds.

For my first foray into this world, I picked Andy Andrew's book The Noticer to read.  I have to admit that this was not that hard to do, after all I have read The Traveler's Gift and The Lost Choice and thoroughly enjoyed each of them.

It is hard to classify Andrews writing style.  While it comes across as fiction, it is almost more of a parable that inspires than anything else.  The books stars a mysterious man named Jones.  Jones shows up, in seems, at just the right time.  He shows up in the middle of people's crisis.  Jones speaks like he is right from the Wisdom Literature of the Bible and he "notices" things about the people who he interacts with and provides some practical and common sense things for them to think about.  Often times it is just a way of pointing out the alternative ways to look at the situation.  In a way, he lifts up people above the trees so that they can see the forest.

Perhaps one of the most important things that Jones does is to remind the characters in the book and the readers that the most important part of our lives is not what is happening or what has happened, but what it is that is ahead of us and how we can take hold of that and change our lives.  No matter how back it is now or was, we have the chance to choose to look forward to what the future holds.

Jones finds ways to bring perspective to people who are going through a variety of difficult crisis in their life such as marriage issues, dealing with bankruptcy, feeling like you have no hope, and a variety of topics that could apply to your everyday person.  Jones provides the perspective so that  you can look at the situation differently and reclaim the situation to make a bad one better.

The book was a great read for me.  I think that you will find that once you start, you cannot stop and will find it difficult to put it down.  Andrews does a great job of providing nuggets all through our the book that we can take and use in our own lives just as much as those lives in the story itself.  He walks us through how we can put on our "new perspective" glasses and look at the situations in a new light.

Another part of the book that I appreciate is the reader's guide.  It takes the story and makes it more personal to the reader by providing some thought provoking questions that can be used individually or in a group setting.  That in itself is a blessing to me as I continue to read the book again and think about how it impacts me.

I recommend this book whole heartily.  You will be hard pressed to not read this book and be touched by it.



Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their Book Review Blogger Program.  I was not required to write a positive review.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255:  "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."