Summary: "What was the tipping point for Malcolm Gladwell? What unscripted event made Meryl Streep who she is? In this inspiration-packed book, Katie Couric reports from the front lines of the worlds of politics, entertainment, sports, philanthropy, the arts, and business—distilling the ingenious, hard-won insights of leaders and visionaries, who tell us all how to take chances, follow our passions, cope with criticism, and, perhaps most important, commit to something greater than ourselves." -Amazon
This is a collection of stories, advice, and general lessons from a large variety of well-known people. Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Brees, Steven Spielberg, Malcolm Gladwell, and many, many more (114 in all) are contributors to this collection. The book is arranged by themes and each theme has an intro from Katie Couric (I enjoyed these). While some of the advice given in this collection is really good, quite a bit of it is rather trite. I was looking for something deeper than this book was able to give; however, there were some beautiful moments. I think I lost something by listening to this as an audiobook; owning this book and randomly reading an essay when the fancy strikes would allow for more thought and digestion. I may give it a few months, buy a physical copy, and give it another go.
Overall, I am going to give it a 3/5, but I am going to encourage others to try it out, especially if one of the 114 contributors is a favorite of yours.
320 pages
![The Princess Diarist by [Fisher, Carrie]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51jrCy4jbkL.jpg)
I love Carrie Fisher. I love her sense of humor. She's so sassy.
I loved listening to the parts when Seth Meyers and Michael Schur sat in while Amy read chapters about them. I loved listening to her talk about Parks and Rec.
This excellent book covers the mental illnesses and/or personality disorders of 12 very famous people: Marilyn Monroe (borderline personality disorder), Howard Hughes (obsessive-compulsive disorder), Andy Warhol (hoarding), Princess Diana (bulimia), Abraham Lincoln (depression), Christine Jorgenson (transgender), Frank Lloyd Wright (narcissism), Betty Ford (alcoholism/drug addiction), Charles Darwin (anxiety), George Gershwin (hyperactivity), Fyodor Dostoevsky (gambling addiction), and Albert Einstein (Asperger's syndrome). I love personality theory and found this book to be extremely engrossing and accessible with many sources and notes listed for each person, some of which I can't wait to read for a deeper understanding. The author is not making diagnoses on her own (she's a journalist and editor) but used these many sources to paint a fascinating and usually compassionate portrait of these well known people. I found all except the final two figures and their diagnoses to be engrossing, probably because I don't find gambling addiction and Asperger's syndrome to be all that interesting. However, the fact that all of these people made great contributions to society while trying to deal with sometimes debilitating problems makes their accomplishments all the more remarkable. (Except for Frank Lloyd Wright - he was just a huge jerk to everyone around him and probably could have achieved even more if not for his extreme narcissism.) 320 pages.
Summary: "Life is good for Hollywood princess Kaitlin Burke, ready to star in a movie by her favorite director, but an old love and a scheming new publicist complicate her already hectic existence."
Summary: "Longing to experience the life of a "normal" teenager, sixteen-year-old actress Kaitlin Burke assumes a false identity to attend a local high school." 
