Giveaway #2:
The Journal of Best Practices
by David Finch
“Don’t change the radio station when she’s singing along.”
David Finch
There are a lot of reasons David Finch’s memoir, Journal of Best Practices, landed on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s heartwarming. It’s honest. It has pita-bread-posing-as-talking-vagina sandwiches. And even though the book is written against the backdrop of an autism diagnosis and David does stunning work to normalize the Asperger experience, its real power lies in normalizing the marriage experience and championing the transformative work of learning to love each other well.
“At some point in nearly every marriage, a wife finds herself asking, What the @#!% is wrong with my husband?! In David Finch’s case, this turns out to be an apt question. Five years after he married Kristen, the love of his life, they learn that he has Asperger syndrome. The diagnosis explains David’s ever-growing list of quirks and compulsions, but it doesn’t make him any easier to live with.
“Determined to change, David sets out to understand Asperger syndrome and learn to be a better husband with an endearing yet hilarious zeal. His methods for improving his marriage involve excessive note-taking, performance reviews, and most of all, the Journal of Best Practices: a collection of hundreds of maxims and hard-won epiphanies, including ‘Don’t change the radio station when she’s singing along’ and ‘Apologies do not count when you shout them.’
“Filled with humor and surprising wisdom, The Journal of Best Practices is a candid story of ruthless self-improvement, a unique window into living with an autism spectrum condition, and proof that a true heart can conquer all.”
This giveaway is now closed.
Congratulations to Robin Jingjit!
Check your e-mail box, Robin.
To Enter This Giveaway:
Leave a comment (perhaps about marriage or living with special powers or pita bread) on this blog post by 11:00am (Pacific Time) on Saturday, December 29th. One entry per person, please.
This drawing is open to international participants ’cause this is my blog and I can do whatever I want.
The winner will be selected using a random number generator and posted on Saturday afternoon. Stay tuned for a final giveaway then!
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with David and Kristen Finch. They don’t know I’m doing this. All costs are incurred by yours truly. I just think this book is a fun, funny, beautifully honest read and that it helps folks feel less alone.
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61 responses to “Day 2 of 3 Giveaways for the Heart and Soul”
This is a wonderful book and I would love to win a copy. My son has Asperger’s and wants to be a writer. David Finch is an inspiration! I also work with families who have a child on the Autism Spectrum, and it is always good to hear a success story.
Sounds like a great book.
I would love to read this! I feel the need to read a novel and this sounds like a funny one that I can relate to.
I’ll talk about marriage. I like being married. Probably because early on he and I learned how to fight. Sounds cruel, but you need to know how to fight well with each other if you want to last. We don’t fight often, but we sure as heck know how to push each other’s buttons, just for fun! 🙂
I love the “apologies don’t count if you shout them” bit of advice;)
Does it sound weird to say I think my dad would really like this book?
Hey Beth, thank you for your funny and insightful blog! I haven’t heard my wife laugh harder then when she read your plug for David Finch’s book this morning! Merry Christmas and all the best in 2013.
my husband and I decided a few days ago that we need to do more laughing – that we’ll be a lot healthier if we simply laugh a little more. Since I laughed out loud just reading about this book, and he did too when I read some of it out loud to him, it sounds like a good read. (Although he was a little disturbed by the idea of talking-pita-vaginas.) 🙂
Also, your blog almost always makes us laugh, and we regularly sing, “I’m washing my HAY-ER!” Thanks for that!
Staying married requires supernatural powers, therefore I would qualify in two categories. I could use a laugh and this book just might be the ticket. Also, I’m not international (save postage).
I love all the books by John Elder Robinson, who wrote “Look me in the eye: My life with Aspergers.” He’s Augusten Burroughs’ brother, who wrote “Running with Sizzors”, among other books.
I thought this book was delightful. Though my son, who has Aspergers, has his own completely different personality, so don’t stereotype too much. Don’t put me in the drawing though. I want someone else to have the chance to read it!
OMG. I just am reading this post as the first one on your blog ever. I’m the one who gave Joy from icansaymama the Beautiful Blogger award and she mentioned you. I haven’t read anything else on your blog (YET – I will!) but just read this post and oh my gosh. I’ve only recently been considering that my husband might have asperger’s. our son is on the ASD with no diagnosis, as his biggest issue is a speech and language delay (he’s only three). BUT my husband is SO socially AWKWARD and has no concept of so much. I’d love to read this book.
Marriage- I love my marriage and would love to be a better wife.
Living with Special Powers- I am sorry, I am unable to reveal my secret powers.
Pita Bread- Wow. I’m both disturbed and intrigued be that pita bread comment. Not sure if I’m more disturbed or intrigued…
My nephew has Asperger’s – I would not be surprised if there may be other family members who have it (though undiagnosed) as well.. What a fascinating read, indeed, for me personally this would be! Thanks for bringing light to its existence and even giving the opportunity to win it..
This looks like an amazing read…thank you for the giveaway!
I checked out the book on Amazon after seeing this post and ended up absorbed in the preview for 30 minutes – it’s now on my list. My husband and I have been together since we were 16 and 18 and have been best friends since two year before that. Friends and strangers alike have remarked on how romantic it must be to be “High School Sweethearts” and we have talked about how nice it is to not only have someone to grow old with, but that we got to grow up together too…. The downside to that is that we had to deal with each others’ “growing pains” and had to learn how to have a solid relationship, with both of us coming from broken homes – still learning. This book seems like a wonderful example of the truth about love… It’s sometimes hard, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes beautiful, sometimes life-affirming… and especially good with a side of friendship. 🙂 I can’t wait to read the rest of his story. Thank you for bringing this book to my attention (and for hosting this contest – so awesome of you to do these giveaways).
This sounds like a really interesting book; it’s been on my list for a while!
I am thinking most marriages could use a Journal of Best Practices.
I think if I were to get married (or even date again) I would want him to learn really quickly ‘don’t touch me when I am sleeping’.
This sounds like a great book that I would love to read. I’ve been learning more about aspergers and Syrian in general lately. It sounds like a good read. Count me in for the raffle! And thanks for doing them!
That should be Autism, not syrian. Stupid autocorrect!
I hadn’t heard of this book, but looking at amazon, it sure sounds interesting.
My story is one of my son having special powers. He’s had temper issues, you know the throw things, yell, storm about the place and generally make life miserable. He’s also had trigger issues, which means we could get a storm from the wrong teaspoon. I’d been working with him on this from when he was a toddler. “Use your words”. I’ve drilled that into him and me both.
Then he was 8 and still had a fierce temper. And one cherished day, something went wrong. I can’t remember what anymore. And my son looked me in the eye and said “I’m really angry with you”, walked to his room, and slammed the door. I looked at that closed door with wonder and wanted to run in and hug him. Congratulate him on holding it together, even when he was ‘really angry with me’. But I didn’t. Cause that’s not done when an 8 year old is really angry with his mum.
But I did later 🙂
Here’s the superpowers bit. His path has meant that I have had to learn leet parenting skills. Things others take for granted, like being friends, like recognising emotions in both yourself and others, learning those unspoken rules of society. Those are the things I’ve had had to break down into tiny, tiny steps for my son. And they say that in order to truly learn something, you have to teach it. Maybe I’m a bit inclined towards my son’s path, I don’t know. What I do know is that by breaking all this stuff down and teaching it to my son, I am looking at it again, learning what bits are useful for me and my two other children. Being a better person, a better friend, a better parent for it.
And I now tell my current toddler to ‘use his words’, when all he has is his toddler displays of emotion, not the storms my other son gave me. But it helps him work through his stuff too.
Now that’s some superpower my son has.
Let’s see – I love being married to my wonderful husband, I love my son with special powers and I even love pita bread dipped in hummus. And somehow those three things together are probably even better.
and wow- we were just talking about this book over Christmas.
Sounds really interesting. Thanks for the giveaway!
Given that my husband and I are _both_ on our second marriages, perhaps this would be a useful book for us to both read.
Thanks for the enjoyable blog, and the fun contests! 🙂
–Emily, mother of 5.5 kids, which is a LOT of kids…
Beth, I love your blog and really enjoy how comfortable you are in your own skin and life. Thank you for the awesome give-aways, here’s hoping I win 😉
I am married to an awesome man and every year that passes I’m surprised at how many things that I thought would be problems or issues are actually blessings in disguise. As an example, my husband has LOTS of allergies (luckily none are life threatening!) I knew going into my marriage I was going to have to learn how to cook differently, clean differently (or at least a lot better), not read in bed, etc. Problems, issues to overcome, right? Wrong! It turns out my hubby is a great cook and housekeep because he had to learn all that stuff a long time ago! And the whole can’t read in bed thing? It meant I got a Kindle when they first came out. It’s a dinasaur now, but I can read electronic books in bed (no book mold.) I love electronic gadgets. =)
I would love to read this. My husband doesn’t have aspergers, but my son has a lot of traits… Sounds very funny and interesting.