Rather amazing comeback story here

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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 109 reviews view larger image
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Rather amazing comeback story here

Surely one of the most Extraordinary Comebacks we've come across in recent days and surely a candidate for an "Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success" Volume 2.

Son of privilege indeed. As a child, he hobnobbed with his parents' friends, literati like Ezra Pound.

He ran with the bulls in Pamplona at Ernest Hemingways' urging, then sat down that very day to tell Papa about it.

Scion of the editor of the NEW YORKER, he went to Yale.

A powerful creative director at J. Walter Thompson NYC for many years, and prominent figure in his own right, he worked with the likes of Jackie Kennedy to preserve New York City landmarks.

Then the wheels fell off. Mid-life crisis to the tenth power, let's say:

He got fired. His girlfriend had a (unexpected) baby. He got divorced. He got a brain tumor.

He was without funds, without a home, without a job.

Sipping a latte at Starbucks one day, he finds, quite by accident, a job, which grows to become a spiritual experience. In serving others, in hard work, in association with others, he reclaims his spirit. He found joining humanity, working with, and serving others would be his redemption.

Thankfully, in this paean to service, and humility, he shares the experience with the rest of us.

Men (and women) of a certain age will read this slim volume and find themselves shuddering with the indignities of advancing age like our protagonist. The author convinces us that in simple work, downsizing (his 35 room mansion is traded for a small attic apartment) and humility, one can reclaim one's dignity even as the finish line appears in the distance.

In spite of it all.

Worth the read? We think so. So did Tom Hanks, who optioned the story for Hollywood.

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entertaining

Good book. Very well written ..even if the author seems a wee bit self congratulatory at times. It's one of those books that makes you hit your head in kind of a " I could have had a v-8!" way .....i.e. " why have I never wrtten a book like this?" MGG isnt the only well ( or over) educated person to have had to take a "humble" job. Nowadays, having ANY job is a GOOD THING! I think many of us have very similar stories to tell but don't have people in publishing high places to help us. I agree with many of the readers/reviewers who have said he does a bit too much name dropping ( ok! we GET it! You were once a big shot!) I have worked for years in a gourmet coffee house ( not Starbucks) and it IS hard work..and 'real' work..and there's much that goes on behind the scenes that people dropping in for a daily pricey cup o' joe will never understand. There are power plays in EVERY job. That said, it was a fun read....not riveting..but something to bring to the beach or read in a dr's waiting room. I sort of wish Amazon had half star rating increments...but I gave it 4 instead...as I hope the book encourages those who may be down on their luck. Lisa in CT

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Delightful Biography

This is a heart-warming story that will leave you smiling. A delight to read from start to finish.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

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