Category: Nonfiction

Book Spotlight: The DIY Musician's Radio Handbook

11/19/2016

The DIY Musician's Radio Handbook: How To Grow Hack Your Fan Base Using Indie Radio Airplay
by D. Grant Smith

Synopsis

Musicians are constantly looking for opportunities to reach new audience. Radio airplay continues to be one of the best outlets to grow your audience and reach new fans. Yet getting your music on the radio is complicated and difficult for many artists. How can you get your music heard on radio so that you can build a stronger and larger audience?
The DIY Musician's Radio Handbook illustrates a practical and thorough step-by-step process for gaining radio airplay AND building solid connections with the people who make radio happen. Jump into the mind of a radio programmer to discover what works and why to gain radio, media, and music industry success with your music.
Author D Grant Smith is not just a music marketing pro. He's the creator and host of the internationally syndicated program The Appetizer Radio Show, and a former radio station manager. In the book, you'll see why radio programmers make their picks on what music gets picked up, and how you can get your music on their radar. Discover the proven process that has helped countless musicians go from unknown and undiscovered to known and celebrated through indie radio airplay. For creative entrepreneurs outside of music, this book is also helpful in seeing how creating human connections and valuing others is the means to create growth that provides long-term benefits. Bloggers, authors, and media creators can gain insights here too.

About the Author

D Grant Smith is the host & creator of The Appetizer Radio Show, a syndicated variety music program that began in 2003. Over the past decade+, Smith has helped musicians get discovered & grow through indie radio airplay like Lindsay Katt, The Rocketboys, William Fitzsimmons, Kelley McRae, Birds Over Arkansas and many more. His experience with The Appetizer Radio Show's growth through syndication taught him what works in marketing media to media, which has helped to fuel his work as "the audience Growth Farmer." Using principles from Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and community building, Smith helps musicians and creative entrepreneurs build supportive communities of superfans through relationship building. His work includes private mentoring, workshops, and speaking engagements where storytelling and empowerment are used to create vibrant and powerful transformations.

https://www.facebook.com/thedgrantsmith

https://wwww.twitter.com/Appetizerradio
http://dgrantsmith.com/books

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2eDJ6pn

Kindle: http://amzn.to/2fS9m1e

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Review: Asking for It

9/14/2016

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Asking for It
by Kate Harding

Synopsis

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest. Congressman Todd Akin’s “legitimate” gaffe. The alleged rape crew of Steubenville, Ohio. Sexual violence has been so prominent in recent years that the feminist term “rape culture” has finally entered the mainstream. But what, exactly, is it? And how do we change it?

In Asking for It, Kate Harding answers those questions in the same blunt, bullshit-free voice that’s made her a powerhouse feminist blogger. Combining in-depth research with practical knowledge, Asking for It makes the case that twenty-first century America—where it’s estimated that out of every 100 rapes only 5 result in felony convictions—supports rapists more effectively than victims. Harding offers ideas and suggestions for addressing how we as a culture can take rape much more seriously without compromising the rights of the accused.

Review

Anyone who is interested in learning more about the feminist movement and rape culture would truly benefit from reading this book. It provides the background information needed to look at each example presented in the book, and gives the reader opportunity to adopt a different perspective. Harding is blunt and doesn't try to sugar coat anything - something truly needed. However, Harding, having a personal connection the the issues discussed, also offers the POV that is hardly paid attention to in cases concerning rape.

This should be on anyone's Feminism 101 reading list. Like feminism itself, rape culture is something that concerns not only women, but men as well.

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Review: True Crime Addict

7/6/2016

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True Crime Addict
by James Renner

Synopsis

When an eleven year old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession leads James to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him PTSD. In 2011, James began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a UMass student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovers numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Maura, but also finds himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Maura deepens, the case starts taking a toll on his personal life, which begins to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and James's own equally complicated true crime addiction.
James Renner's True Crime Addict is the story of his spellbinding investigation of the missing person's case of Maura Murray, which has taken on a life of its own for armchair sleuths across the web. In the spirit of David Fincher's Zodiac, it is a fascinating look at a case that has eluded authorities and one man's obsessive quest for the answers.

Review

Then, amidst all the romance novel reviews, there is a true crime review. I'm showing some true colors here, ya'll. I have a masters degree in Clinical Psychology and a life time of interest in true crime involving serial killers, unsolved mysteries, and abnormal psychology. These are the stories that terrify me, but interest me so very much.

With that said - this book is FANTASTIC. I got it from the library and I hate that I have to give it back. It is just so good. It has so many facets. On one side, it is an investigative piece on a missing person, Maura Murray. You might of heard of her. She's a college student that seems to have vanished after "crashing" her car on the side of a road. I believe it's been 12 years since she's been seen. And on the other side, it is also a story of the author's further descent into the world he's come to be obsessed with and how it affects his life.

This was truly a fascinating book. I loved it and finished it within a day. I recommend it to all true crime lovers or even people who simply love a good mystery.

Below is one of many videos concerning Maura Murray on YouTube. I have no affiliation with this video - let's just call it some bonus content.

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Review: The Shelf Life of Ashes

5/11/2016

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The Shelf Life of Ashes
by Hollis Giammatteo

Synopsis

When Hollis Giammatteo sought a job working with the elderly, she did so with the intention of finding models of healthy aging. And she failed.

In The Shelf Life of Ashes, Giammatteo chronicles her experiences with her wards, as well as the trip she embarks upon when her mother, who is convinced she is dying, entreats her to come “home.” Trips back, traumas triggered, identity in crisis, equanimity gained―this quasi-comic, concentrated journey engages the reader in the process of naming and facing the tasks involved in growing old, while asking a simple but weighted question: Can aging be done well?

Review

When I first learned about this book through the blog tour that I'm on (Truth of Dare Blog Tour from Book Sparks), I was a bit wary of this one. It's not the idea of death that got me - it was the idea of other people's death (i.e. people I know) that got me thinking.

This book is a true account of Hollis's experiences with the elderly and her own family. She takes us to a place where I have always been terrified of visiting - that of the death of a parent. There is so much more to this story, however. The experiences that Hollis has gone through, both lonely and beautiful, kept me going. There are so many ways we can grow older, and reading Hollis's work encourage me to continue with some tenderness and laughter.

Anyone who reads this story can expect to read about (and want) a life that is bigger - maybe even better - than what we currently have. It was definitely an eye-opening journey.

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Review: At the Existentialist Cafe

3/2/2016

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At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others
by Sarah Blackwell

Synopsis

Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. “You see,” he says, “if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!”

It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism.

Featuring not only philosophers, but also playwrights, anthropologists, convicts, and revolutionaries, At the Existentialist Café follows the existentialists’ story, from the first rebellious spark through the Second World War, to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anticolonialism, feminism, and gay rights. Interweaving biography and philosophy, it is the epic account of passionate encounters—fights, love affairs, mentorships, rebellions, and long partnerships—and a vital investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting the major questions of freedom, global responsibility, and human authenticity in a fractious and technology-driven world.

Review

As someone who has always been interested in philosophy, specifically existentialism, this book was exactly what I wanted to read! It was the perfect introduction into the philosophy. Blackwell did a wonderful job, not just reiterating the concepts I have heard of before, but by giving us the origins. Blackwell writes for the literary reader - in a story-like fashion that makes one want to keep reading instead of falling asleep. There was so much to read and learn about - concepts connecting with historical events and also getting the perspective of more than just one philosopher. It was a great read for anyone interested in learning more about philosophy without the chore of feeling like you don't understand a word. This book definitely knows its audience.

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Book Spotlight: The DIY Musician's Radio Handbook

About the Author

Review: Asking for It

Review: True Crime Addict

Below is one of many videos concerning Maura Murray on YouTube. I have no affiliation with this video - let's just call it some bonus content.

Review: The Shelf Life of Ashes

Review: At the Existentialist Cafe

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