#19 on my list, Read 15 new books (#1)

Number 19 on my list has me reading 15 new books this year. I plan on having it be an eclectic list, some books that I'll learn something from and others will just be fun for fun. Some will focus on health and others will focus on the heart.

So with that disclaimer I'd like to let you all know that I finished my first one last night! It's called, For Women Only, written by Shaunti Feldhann. It's about the things that men wish we new about them, and how they really feel about us (as women), but more specifically their wives. Now as most of you out there may know, I am not a wife, yet (I still hold out hope), however, when I read books like this it's always with that expectation in mind, and more specifically, because I am an observer of people, I usually draw on past experiences and behavior that I have witnessed in order to understand why I do the things that I do, and feel the way that I feel about certain things. It's a short read, only 9 chapters (if I had more time I could have probably finished it in a day, but then again I don't know if I would have gotten all that I did out of it), and those 9 chapters are chock full of things that most women don't know.

For better, or worse, I have been in the company of men for a good part of my life. They were always my closest friends growing up, I'm close with my Dad, I have 4 brothers (I am the only girl), and I was in the Navy for 5 years, so a lot of the information I had already been told, and was there for not new to me. What was new to me, and never dispensed in my direction, was HOW important some of these things are to men and how some of those aspects have affected my own life and the company I have kept with men.

The 9 chapters include the following:

1. Light bulb On!,How I Woke Up to What I Didn’t Know About Men
2. Your Love Is Not Enough, Why Your Respect Means More to Him than Even Your Affection
3. The Performance of a Lifetime, Why Your Mr. Smooth Looks So Impressive but Feels Like an Impostor
4. The Loneliest Burden, How His Need to Provide Weighs Your Man Down, and Why He
Likes It That Way
5. Sex Changes Everything, Why Sex Unlocks a Man’s Emotions (Guess Who Holds the Key?)
6. Keeper of the Visual Rolodex, Why It’s So Natural for Him to Look and So Hard to Forget What He’s Seen
7. Chocolate, Flowers, Bait Fishing, Why the Reluctant Clod You Know Really Does Want Romance
8. The Truth About the Way You Look, Why What’s on the Outside Matters to Him on the Inside
9. Words for Your Heart, What Your Man Most Wishes You Knew About Him

So I won't give a synopsis of what I thought about all the chapters, but chapters 2, 4, 7, and 8 resonated for me the most. Mostly because of the general lack of respect that I've seen women give to men, and all of those chapters set a tone for how we, as women choose to, and can show our respect to men. Reading it I could see how a great many things that my Dad did for me, like teaching me to play golf or how to understand football, and to enjoy fishing and camping, could be looked at as attempts to cultivate a sense of what men like to take part in so that I can share in those things with my future husband, and not just demand the typical "girly" type dates (although those will be nice too). But I truly do like to do those things and that sense of play, that chapter 7 talks about will be very important. As a matter of fact I know that it already is for me because any boyfriend that I've ever had, hasn't lasted very long if he didn't want to do anything. I love my Dad very much and I'm so glad that he is who he is, and has helped to make me into the person that I am today.

Anyway, I could continue to go on with my opinions on the topics of the book, however the bottom line is that I definitely recommend this book for all women no matter what their station is married, or single, or even if they just want to know a little bit more about what makes people, men in this instance, tick. True we'll never fully know or be able to understand them, but it's nice to at least break away a little of the barrier that exists between the sexes.

If you're interested I've put a link to the website on my fave links list (it still looks like they're trying to put it together, but it still gives a synopsis of the surveys that were taken for the book that you can see if you submit a free registration). There are also a few other books of her's that she has written along the same lines, For Men Only (obviously that's about us and written for them), and there is also, For Young Women Only and For Young Men Only.

So my adoring public, that is 1 book down and 14 more to go!