Jim Garland

A reference librarian in Boston receives a windfall of cash and is inundated with marriage proposals, but can't figure out how to actually find love. He adopts a small dog (some confusion, he thought he was adopting a large dog) and has various adventures in the dating world before finally finding the right woman for him.

This book dials the quirk up to eleven and leaves it there. I picked it up because I figured, hey, I like books about librarians and dogs and romance. The book is cleanly edited, unlike some small press ventures I've come across, and I did read to the end to figure out how the whole wacky thing was going to resolve. If you like your romances extra quirky, this might be just your thing -- but be ready for Nigerian orphans and a long-lost twin and a rapper named QTπ and a Buddhist car dealership and a host of other inexplicable details.… (mais)

I'm a coach of 8-9 year old girls. This book had several drills that we've used effectively in practice this season. There is a good variety of options and the drills are organized by what skill you are working on so you can quickly flip to whatever you want.

The pictures are helpful to show how to set up and run the drill. I also like how the book displays related drills after each one so you can tie certain drills together or build on them from practice to practice.

The main thing I'd like to see from this book is to give several sample practices where they put the drills together into a 60-90 minute grouping.… (mais)

I received a copy of this book as part of the Early Reviewers group at LibraryThing.

I have been involved in coaching youth soccer for many years. On a few occasions, our club brought in professional indoor soccer players and coaches to help us build consistent training routines. I was always impressed with the way these professionals were able to take a complex skill (dribbling through traffic for instance), break it down into several small components and define a drill for each of the components. In his book, Jim Garland uses this same approach.

His drills are first divided into skill groups. Then each drill in each skill group is broken down into different levels - beginner, intermediate and advanced. From there, the author adds notes about what complementary skills the drill is designed to reinforce. Further, he adds notes on what to coach on and what to do if things begin to go wrong. The way that all of the drills are designed to build on one another is very impressive.

There are likely innumerable books/videos on this topic. In my opinion, Jim Garland's latest offering is a cut above the rest for it's simplicity and thoughtful layout.… (mais)