TITLE: 30 Perfect Days: Finding Abundance in Ordinary Life
PUBLISHED IN: November, 2014.
THE AUTHOR: Claudia Taller.
THE PUBLISHER: Igniting Possibilities Press.
SUMMARY: In her book 30 Perfect Days, Finding Abundance in Ordinary Life, a spiritual memoir, author Claudia Taller allows the reader to go into her personal world to find the perfect moments that ultimately define our lives. 30 Perfect Days, Finding Abundance in Ordinary Life is a quest to live in the moment, make connections, and pay attention to what life has to offer. Through daily reflection, Taller deals with life’s surface obstacles with honesty and authenticity to gain insight into the patterns behind the problems. By the end of her journey, Taller is more accepting and forgiving of herself and others and knows first-hand that a change of approach can lead any seeker to a more fulfilling and meaningful life. The reader comes to a deeper understanding that once we embrace our lives as they are and turn inward to seek guidance, stress, judgment, expectations, and disappointments become small obstacles along the way. In the end, Taller infers, it is up to us to nurture our souls.
THE BACK STORY: Claudia Taller was participating in an Artist’s Way workshop when the group was asked to describe their perfect day. An Artist’s Way practitioner from way back when Julia Cameron first came to the forefront as a creativity expert, Taller’s “perfect day” had always consisted of walking, writing, reading, sharing a great meal with friends, being in nature, and doing yoga. She asked a different question–why couldn’t every day be a perfect day?
WHY THIS TITLE? Self evident.
WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: Because you don’t come across books like this very often. Taller dissects and dishes out her daily life like a modern-day Thoreau, except that her Walden might be a yoga class, a coffee shop, or a sunset. Indeed, part of the message of “30 Perfect Days” is that perfection isn’t an unreachable ideal, but a matter of making the best of what each day has to offer. Yet Taller is no guru, and she confronts her own failings with unblinking honesty that makes this more like a conversation with a friend than pie-in-the-sky advice handed down from on high.
AUTHOR PROFILE: Taller wrote her first novel when she was 12 and threw the 100-page typewritten manuscript away when she was 15 because it was inadequate. Much later, in college as an English major, she took a number of writing classes, but after a creative writing seminar which discouraged her, she turned away from creative writing and towards business and legal writing. It wasn’t until she was in her late 30s that she gave herself permission to just write at the heart level, and her success as a part-time freelance writer led her to launch Word Lovers Retreats in 2008, which she continues to host twice a year. Her first book, Ohio’s Lake Erie Wineries, was hugely successful, and she wrote it because she is in awe of the passionate resolve of vineyard keepers and wine makers (Ohio’s Canal Country Wineries is being released in July 2015). Her first published novel, Daffodils and Fireflies, is about a woman who is on a journey to follow her heart and move on after a tumultuous past.
AUTHOR COMMENTS: “We are on a journey on the river of life, meandering, flowing over the rocks if we’re lucky, working through the obstructive branches, widening and narrowing in our ability to respond to the world and to be our best selves. We find our true selves as we go along, bit by bit, even as we change, the changes wrought in us becoming part of all the things going down that river with us. The bad stuff, if we go about it right, gets left behind.”
READER COMMENTS:
“Taller’s honesty on the page and meditative voice make for compelling reading. She allows us into her life in an intimate way, yet her writing touches on universal themes.” (Marsha McGregor).
“As the title suggests, this book explores the idea of capturing a month of perfect days. But life often trumps our plans, so it is the book’s subtitle that is the true theme. Author Claudia Taller reminds us that while jobs, marriage, children, and the needs of older parents can challenge our mind, it’s up to us to nurture our souls. To find abundance and joy in the perfect moments that are indeed there everyday – if only we can let go of ego, worry, insecurities, and those complex emotions that plague us all. Not an easy task and not always accomplished. But Claudia lets the reader into her personal world to show how it can be done. If not for an entire day, at least in those cherished perfect moments that ultimately define our lives.” (Deanna Adams)
“A gifted writer, Claudia J. Taller draws the reader into a very personal look at her inner life–her joys and struggles with managing the challenges of her life in a way that holds meaning to her soul. As she sets out to have 30 perfect days and write about each one, life itself intruded with its plans! Taller deals with these obstacles by going deeper than their face value to gain insight into the patterns behind the problems and to find the places in her own heart that needed to shift into greater acceptance and forgiveness of self and others. Many of the chapters end with a question for the reader to reflect on the topic of the day in his or her own life. My favorite part was where Taller asked her writing class, “If you could have four other lives, what would they be?” In her own listing of her four other lives, she realized that she had already incorporated the essence of all four of them into her own present life, which though imperfect, had many perfect moments. Unabashedly honest, reading this book helps a person be more accepting of life as it is, while simultaneously seeing how shifting our own attitudes can make it better.” (Barbara Stone, author of Transforming Fear into Gold: How Facing What Frightens You the Most Can Heal and Light Up Your Heart
WHERE TO BUY IT: The book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from the author. Category: Self-Help, Body, Mind, Spirit; Availability: Amazon.com, BN.com, claudiajtaller.com.
PRICE: $5.99 on Kindle.
CONTACT THE AUTHOR: The book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from the author. Category: Self-Help, Body, Mind, Spirit; Availability: Amazon.com, BN.com, claudiajtaller.com.
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 
This book is enjoyable to read and provokes thought as the author shares glimpses into the struggle between desire, responsibility, duty, passion and love. The perfect read for the self-aware or those wishing to be so.
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