The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success by Marcus Buckingham is a concise guide to figuring out what to do in life. An enhanced DVD, a book, and a “ReMemo” pad are the tools, but your personal strengths are the foundation.

The whole package can be summed up with:

• Figure out what your strengths are
• Focus on your strengths and develop them (rather than trying to “improve” your weaknesses)
• Do what you can to structure your life and career so you are living in your strengths as much possible

Books like this appeal to me for two reasons:

1. I am fascinated with the concepts of personality type, natural strengths, and anything that centers around what makes people tick.

2. I like gadgets, so I like how this system is set up — there’s not just a book, but a DVD and a special “ReMemo” Pad that gives you a place to put what you’ve learned into practice.

Buckingham guides readers through the process of discovering their strengths, using probing questions, self-examination, examples from real life, and the included ReMemo Pad, which readers carry with them to record experiences, both good and bad.

One point I appreciated was when the author said your strengths aren’t always necessarily “what you’re good at.” You can be very good at something…but hate it. You can excel in a certain area…but it sucks you dry. Rather than just look at what others think your talents are, you have to discover the things and activities that energize you, excite you, bring you real fulfillment — those things align more closely with your strengths. If you concentrate on developing them and improving them, you’ll be on the right track.

The other concept I appreciated was that we often are encouraged to “work on our weaknesses,” to try to improve in areas where we are currently lacking. Buckingham admitted that we can’t simply ignore our weaknesses, but said that we’ll find much greater success when we concentrate on our strengths and seek to be part of teams or situations where our weaknesses are compensated for. (I’m thinking this means I need to hire someone to clean my house, rather than try to get better at it, right?)

Buckingham keeps the concepts in this book simple, so I think it would be ideal for high school and college students who are trying to figure out what to pursue and what comes next. The concepts are applicable to adults as well, and those who have been in their chosen career for years, but I think there are other books from Buckingham that would be better suited to that audience (such as Now, Discover Your Strengths).

I plan to hold on to this set and go through it with my kids when they are older. I believe it will give them a good basis for deciding what course of study to pursue in college, and also give them the confidence to know that the way they are hard-wired is important and can be the key to finding life work that is a good fit for them.

You can get a deeper look into The Truth About You at the Thomas Nelson site, and you can pick up a copy of the set for yourself at Amazon.com.

Any time I pick up a novel by Mary DeMuth, I know there’s a good chance I’ll encounter some heartache. Mary writes beautifully about difficult situations, pulling the reader in with her engaging prose and intricately-woven stories. And she doesn’t shy away from the fact that not all difficult situations have neat and tidy endings.

Take, for example, her latest novel, Daisy Chain. From the first chapter, I knew I would love the main character, Jed. Let me give you some background:

Fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper is devastated. His best friend, Daisy Chance, is missing and Jed is sure it’s his fault. After all, he should have walked her home… As Jed and the rest of the town of Defiance, Texas, look for young Daisy, it seems everyone is on edge. Is there a kidnapper — or worse, a killer — loose in the town, endangering the lives of the other children?

But as I quickly discovered, Daisy Chain is not just about a missing little girl. While Jed is looking for Daisy, it turns out he’s also looking for much more.

He’s looking for the courage to stand up to his father — a man who preaches the Bible from the pulpit every Sunday, but terrorizes and intimidates his family during the week.

He’s looking for a way to help his mother, who has retreated behind a wall of headaches and weakness in the face of her husband’s anger.

He’s looking for a God who loves and cares for His children…a God who seems so far away.

And he’s looking for hope in a world filled with illness, lies, danger, and secrets that threaten to destroy.

Admittedly, Daisy Chain was not always easy to read. Jed has to face many things that I’d like to protect my own kids from, and as I read of his pain and despair, I couldn’t help but long for a happy ending for him. Does Jed find a happy ending? You’ll have to read Daisy Chain yourself to find out (and I can assure you that it’s a more complicated answer than I could give you here, anyway!).

But I will tell you this: one of the things I love about Mary DeMuth is that she knows how to infuse hope into her stories. Yes, she likes to keep things “real” by facing, head-on, some of the worst this world can bring. But she always acknowledges that there is a God who is a God of hope, and we can lean on Him and trust Him to deliver us from utter despair.

Earlier this year, I listened to the audiobook version of one of Oprah’s recent book club picks. The story was beautifully written: characters to fall in love with; story lines that kept me curious; loyal pets (they always make a story better, right?); and lots of potential. But the ending reminded me of why I don’t read Oprah picks very often. Essentially, the book ended with, “And then the bad guy got out of control and everyone died. Life is pointless. The end.” Talk about a downer.

I’ll take Daisy Chain any day — real, engaging, sometimes heart-breaking, but ultimately offering hope and pointing readers in the right direction. Thanks, Mary, for a great book!

Want more? Check out this trailer for Daisy Chain:

And if you’re interested in reading more reviews of this book, check out the blog tour headquarters, where you can find all the blogs that will be posting about Daisy Chain this week.

Daisy Chain, the first book in the Defiance Texas Trilogy, is available at local booksellers and on Amazon.com.

I have to admit, I’m pretty new to the genre of spiritual memoir. And I might as well tell you: I just made that genre up. I’m not sure if it’s a legitimate, publisher-sanctioned genre. But it works for me.

When I say “spiritual memoir,” I mean a book in which the author shares their spiritual journey or faith journey, through the use of many personal stories, while at the same time pointing readers to some timeless spiritual truths that they’ve discovered along the way. In my experience, this “teaching” is not heavy-handed, but rather a natural outflow of their personal story-telling.

So as I was saying, I’m pretty new to this genre; I’ve only read a handful of spiritual memoirs.  And to be honest, my opinion of the books has been mixed. There are some I’ve read that I simply wouldn’t recommend to others, for various reasons.

But I can whole-heartedly recommend the most recent one I’ve read: Stone Crossings by L.L. Barkat.

If you don’t read L.L.’s blog, Seedlings in Stone, you might want to check it out. That’s where I first “met” her and first came to admire her poetic style and her love for God. But if you do read Seedlings in Stone, then you won’t be surprised to hear that L.L.’s first book, Stone Crossings, is full of rich metaphors, a sense of wonder and grace, and an honest exploration of the truth.

In Stone Crossings, L.L. Barkat shares the story of her life — from heartbreaking childhood experiences, to becoming a wife and mother, to learning how to live out her faith in God on a daily basis. But it’s her personal approach that made me want to savor and re-read every chapter as I went along. Here’s what she offers:

• Honesty. L.L. doesn’t sugar-coat the painful stuff of life. She shares honestly, from the heart, without melodrama, but with approachable sincerity.

• Encouragement. L.L.’s exploration of faith and spiritual growth felt, to me, like talking to a mentor. Always, she reminds the reader that God’s grace is real and abundant — available to us right now, wherever we are.

• Information. On topics from leprosy to the Old Testament Tabernacle, L.L. includes fascinating details that add a depth and new perspective to the Biblical passages she shares.

• An Accurate Filter. This was, to me, the most important factor in my appreciation for Stone Crossings. In several other spiritual memoirs I’ve read, the focus was primarily on the author (understandable — it’s a memoir after all), but it seemed that, though the author shared Scripture passages or thoughts about God, they too often interpreted God or the Bible in light of their own experiences. Not so with Stone Crossings. Throughout her story, L.L. is faithful to interpret her experiences in light of the truth of God and His word. Her focus on Scripture and its relevance is predominant, which I believe makes Stone Crossings stand out in its genre.

So if you’re looking for a book that takes you on a journey of faith and growth, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Stone Crossings. And in the meantime, click over to check out L.L.’s blog, Seedlings in Stone!