I’ve heard the name Seth Godin many times before. Recently I was flipping through a blog and came across a list of things to boost your marketing. One included “Read Purple Cow, by Seth Godin The curiosity in me decided to order the book and see what Seth Godin is all about.

I am hooked.

Ignoring the fact that this book was originally written in 2002, with great content and Seth’s writing style this book fun and easy to read. As someone who rarely ever picks up an actual book, I want to order the rest of his books.

Seth doesn’t give you a direct answer on how to make a Purple Cow. In fact, he tells you straight out that not every idea will be a Purple Cow. that’s what makes it better. He gives you example upon example of other companies who have done it in the past and why they were successful.

While I originally found the book in a marketing blog, it is something that anyone in a company interested in product development can relate to. It doesn’t take the side of the marketer but shows how each person on the team can be important to the products result.

This book looks at the past and the future of products and “being remarkable” in your industry. With TV and print advertising becoming less and less popular, marketers and those developing products have had to find new ways to stand above their competition. Suddenly it’s not about who has the best advertisement, it’s about who makes the most “remarkable product”

So you want to know what a Purple Cow is? Read the book… you will not regret it.

As a knitter I’m always looking for new books to read that bring me back around to knitting. Debbie Macomber opens up the world of knitting inside the city of Seattle with the Blossom Shop series. The series starts out with The Shop On Blossom Street. This is the first book of a five book series.

Without giving anything away, the story revolves around a group of knitters who join a “Knit to Quit” group. Each person has a reason for being there and each has a story to tell. The book follows different knitters and friends from Blossom street as they go through the quitting process.

I thought the book was a great start to the series. The book takes place over the course of one summer, so there were parts of it that were sort of rushed in order to fit the entire summer into the one book. There were moments reading the book where I felt like it could have been split into two, to evolve a story line or two a little more. I would’ve liked to see more details as the characters grew and learned about their new friends and family members.

While the book did follow different a variety of story lines, each characters story lines were different enough that I never got any of the characters confused. Debbie did a good job of introducing each character and bringing in background on the characters by bringing in people from their past. Having the background information made the story line easy to follow.

Each chapter started out with a quote from someone from the knitting world. The quotes ranged from “why i like my knitting” to “what knitting means to me”.

I recommend this book to both knitters and non-knitters. While it is technically a book about a knitting shop, it doesn’t require you to have any background knowledge of knitting. There were characters in the book who didn’t knit at all. If you’re looking for a book that doesn’t require too much thinking, but still takes you into another world, I recommend it.

I’m starting the next book in the series, A Good Yarn, tonight.