I Thought Starbucks Was a Haven Just for Customers!

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	• How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else Michael Gates Gill Gotham, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 103 reviews view larger image
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Enchanting Story

This is a delightful book which celebrates "less is more". I really enjoyed reading Michael's journey, with all of its highs and lows. It's fascinating how he could create a positive experience out of a negative one, and he should be an inspiration to anyone who has been down on their luck.

I think Michael's an interesting, good-natured person with a colorful history. The fact that he socialized with Jackie Kennedy, the queen, and famous authors only added to the story and contrasted his stations in life.

Good for you Michael Gates Gill. You are worthy of being an author. This book is good for everyone, especially coffee drinkers.

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I Thought Starbucks Was a Haven Just for Customers!

I was enchanted by this book on a number of levels. Certainly it's about the comeback of a human soul, from the despair of what he thought losing everything was about to finding a new life, perhaps richer in essence and spirit. In the past few years, I've watched how coffee cafes have become, for many of us, a place for reflection and community. I look forward each day to my Starbucks, and not just the drinks, but mainly, when I can sit down, read, watch people, and generally not feel alone in the world, as it swirls around me. It never occurred to me, until I read Mr. Gill's book, that the employees also have their own sense of community. Some of us, but not many, are blessed with that at our workplace. I was inspired by this book, in many ways, but perhaps most importantly in how to find the moments of each day, the meaning of those moments, and the flashes of fulfillment when work is well-done. One doesn't have to climb mountains to soar heights!

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Heartbreaking and heartwarming

Thanks to a recommendation on "The Think Club" Web site, I got a copy of this midlife memoir and read it on the beach in two days. I was completely charmed.

The privileged son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill, Michael Gates Gill was educated at Yale and enjoyed a long-running, stellar career at J. Walter Thompson until he was fired for being...middle-aged. At first, this might sound like your average midlife crisis, but Gill is a good storyteller, with an eye for sparkling anecdotes to illustrate his privileged background and the (often insane) world of high-end advertising. His memoir chronicles his personal and professional crisis -- and, amazingly, what led him to take a full-time job behind the counter at Starbucks.

While one reviewer criticizes the writer's style, I recently taught a memoir class using William Zinsser's "On Writing Well," and found that Gill relies on the same principles of good nonfiction writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity. His prose is crisp and highly relatable. He admits and laments his mistakes, including how he failed his family. In fact, I found this book far less self-indulgent than most of the "spiritual memoirs" on the best-seller list lately.

This book should be a hit with Baby Boomers, as many are finding themselves forced into early retirement, like Gill, or at least questioning their vocation or life work. Best of all, Gill reminds us that menial tasks and "ordinary" work can be paths to spiritual awakening, and that celebrity and privilege are rarely more than glimmers on a slippery surface. This memoir broke my heart with its candor -- and I can see why The Think Club chose it as their Book of the Year for 2007.

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Ode To Starbucks!

If this isn't an ode to Starbucks I don't know what is! This upbeat little read has an appeal not unlike some of Starbucks Coffees. (To be honest I find their basic brews too bitter for my tastes most times.) The protagonist has what might be called your standard fall from grace and redemption through trail and error thing. We have all seen this kind of style before. The almost appologetic attitude of the writer gets annoying at times as he has to tread lightly through the multi-cultural work environment he must survive in. I find this a bit annoying, as it is true that high wheelers like this guy never gave most people the right time, let alone minorities, but why must all Caucasians today assume a humble attitude because of jerks like this! Give me a break! It seems we must all bow and scrape now because of past colonialism and arrogance of a few people like this.

Gill has become a super convert to PC attitude, and its just what certain ultra-liberal mindsets love to see. This book certainly panders to that outlook. Notwithstanding these issues, I did find this little read amusing and uplifting in its own way. The author spends most of the time with flashbacks to his illustrous past, where he name-drops a lot of famous people that he knew through elite connections. Those elites have now abandoned him, and he is a happier guy now for his pentitence at Starbucks! Its a little thick, but I liked it nonetheless.

I do think the author glossed over a lot of the issues one faces in a multi-cultural and generational work place. Sometimes the parties do not always come together as they do nicely here, and there tends to be a high level of disconnect and anger in some of these work environments today. The characters the author uses here are all likeable, and almost too nice!

If you want a fun, somewhat uplifting and amusing look at the Coffee biz, then this little book will certainly provide that. Bring it along nice time you order at Starbucks!

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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