Delivering Happiness

I don't usually make a habit of picking up business success stories or business how to guides but as luck would have it, this type of book was thrust upon me near the Las Vegas Marathon finish line by the jovial individual standing by a Zappos RV wrapped in the same graphics as the book jacket. Despite the topic, as a librarian, I think I was more excited about the free book than the bagels and bananas my body desperately needed after such a long race.

Most people recognize the name Zappos as the successful online shoe retailer but many may not know the brains behind such a bold venture, Tony Hsieh. Delivering Happiness recounts the struggles faced by Hsieh, as an Asian American boy growing up in the United States, his secret love for business and various failed business attempts through childhood and college.

The lessons shared in the book are life lessons not necessarily business lessons. In fact, it is more a guide to personal success, maintaining one's values no matter what you do in life. Hsieh, in an unassuming tone, shares his private struggles to find his unique identity despite the strict expectations from traditional Asian parents. Hsieh recounts mistakes and successes along his personal and professional journey, both being so closely merged as to seem indistinguishable from one another.

Along with hard work and dedication, it is connectivity, a shared vision and passion that builds a truly successful business, according to Hsieh. The message throughout Hsieh's writing, is that to be a true success, one must strive for connectedness to others, sharing success and happiness wherever possible. Inspirational advice we can all use in difficult economic times.

It's a Southern Thing

My southern roots call to me as I lazily read through The Help by Kathryn Stockett, my latest summer read. While not the typical summer novel, I can picture myself planted on the porch swing with and ice tea during the hot humid summers of Jackson, Mississippi, the story's backdrop. I enjoyed the slower pace & simpler times and retreated a bit to my southern accent, affectionately spoken to all that would listen. As with much of history, the 1960's was mixture of both the good and the bad. Despite the genteel endearments of the time, it was heartbreakingly shameful in many ways. It has been compared To Kill A Mockingbird by some book critics, examining the deeply rooted southern traditions, racial tensions and accepted segregation. The Help humanizes the characters on both sides of the racial tensions, specifically the women. Significant moments in history, such as John F. Kennedy's assassination and Martin Luther King's, famous speech, provide the historical context for the story, but it is the maids who are the true heroines.

The maids, often called the help, are all black women, who played significant roles in the lives of privileged white families, not just cooking and caring for the house but raising the children with love and fierce loyalty, often referring to them as their own children. Some of the maids receive the same return of love and loyalty from the families while others are mistreated as inferior creatures, and still others experience the dichotomy of both. One young southern lady, Miss Skeeter, becomes an outcast as she bravely and secretively weaves the maids' various stories and diverse experiences together with the help of one maid, Aibileen, exposing previously unchallenged truths. The female characters are beautifully crafted, facing the internal struggles of self any women can identify with, and the external struggles of expectation from family, friends and society as a whole.

The reader is left to question their own morals and commitment to stand for what is right amidst the opposition of one's loyalties to family and friends. Miss Skeeter must face the loneliness of marking her own path and the maids must rely on their faith to save them from being exposed but the new bonds that are formed in the process create stronger character, true friendships and inevitable change.

The author, Kathryn Stockett, was turned down at least forty times before her debut novel, The Help, was accepted and published. Thankfully, this thought provoking story confirms my belief in the possibility of good contemporary fiction. The characters in her book mirror the author's own tenacity and cherished optimism.