Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Book Reviews

The Skinny on Willpower How to Develop Self Discipline By Jim Randel llustration by Malinda Nass Rand Publishing (2009), 233 panels ISBN 10: 0981893538 ISBN 13: 978-0981893532

Reviewed by Israel Drazin - April 27, 2010

Jim Randel has published eight books entitled The Skinny On. All are clever, humorous, and entertaining. All teach vital need-to-know lessons in an informal, non-pedantic, concise, and engaging fashion by generally using drawings of stick people engaged in dialogue. This volume shows how people can improve their will power by self discipline. As in other books in the series, Randel shows how to develop willpower by giving his readers more than a hundred examples and quotes from famous successful people.

The stick figures in this volume, who serve as humorous examples of Randel's teachings, are a married couple. It is New Years and the husband wants to lose ten pounds. But how can he develop the discipline to do it when he loves to eat fattening foods such as marshmallows? How can he make sure that he will exercise? How can he control himself not to go overboard, eat too little or over-exercise? What should he do when he slips up and overeats or becomes distracted from his goals because of stress at work?

The wife wants to start a business, but she has to do several things before she can start, such as write up a plan for the bank so that the bank will lend her money. But she never did such a thing before and feels stymied. How can she develop the discipline to move ahead?

Among fifteen points and Randel suggests and explains are: set for yourself a clear, concrete, specific goal; divide the goal into manageable parts; and become totally committed.

Dr. Israel Drazin is the author of fifteen books, including a series of five volumes on the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, which he co-authors with Rabbi Dr. Stanley M. Wagner, and a series of four books on the twelfth century philosopher Moses Maimonides, the latest being Maimonides: Reason Above All, published by Gefen Publishing House, www.gefenpublishing.com. The Orthodox Union (OU) publishes daily samples of the Targum books on www.ouradio.org

The Skinny on Credit Cards, by Jim Randel.
This book will be helpful to everyone from the young adult getting his or her first card to the older adult who has used cards for years and never really totally understood the rules of the game.

The Skinny on Time Management, by Jim Randel.
This is a comprehensive summary of time and time management. In its trademark whimsical story format, The Skinny takes a profound look at techniques and skills to help today's time starved lifestyle.