• Pub. Date: January 4, 2010
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Format: Hardcover, 160pp

Michael Gill’s lemons-to-lemonade memoir chronicled his transformative years working at Starbucks after losing his high-powered job, his marriage, and his health (he developed a brain tumor). In response to overwhelming requests from readers who wanted to know how they, too, could weather downturns, he has distilled his lessons into fifteen meaningful lessons, including:

·Leap…With Faith: Sometimes it pays to leap without looking and say yes without thinking (Gill accepted the Starbucks job immediately, on a whim).

·Let Yourself…Be Helped: Pride is even more paralyzing than fear.

·Look…with Respect at Every Individual You See: Gill was raised to avoid eye contact with those who were different, cloistered in a privileged world. Now he realizes the potential in all who cross his daily path.

·Lose…Your Watch (and Cell Phone and PDA!): Our obsession with productivity produces madness, not gladness.

photo credit: Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times

Offering living proof that extraordinary happiness is found in ordinary moments, How to Save Your Own Life provides empowering words and hope for anyone facing a reversal of fortune. True fortune, Gill discovered, lies not in fate but in discovering the innate capacity we all possess to rescue ourselves.

About Michael

Michael Gates Gill is the son of New Yorker writer Brendan Gill and he was a creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising where he was employed for over 25 years. He currently lives in New York within walking distance of the Starbucks store where he works, and has no plans to retire from what he calls the best job he’s ever had.

Michael Gates Gil’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, January 4th:  MidLifeBloggers

Tuesday, January 5th:  Life and Times of a “New” New  Yorker

Wednesday, January 6th:  Books on the Brain

Monday, January 11th:  The Written World

Tuesday, January 12th:  TexasRed’s Books

Wednesday, January 13th:  It’s All A Matter of Perspective

Thursday, January 14th:  A Novel Menagerie

Wednesday, January 20th:  Thoughts of an Evil Overlord

Monday, January 25th:  Silver and Grace

Tuesday, January 26th:  Inventing My Life

Wednesday, January 27th:  Write for a Reader

Thursday, January 28th:  Confessions of a Book a Holic

Friday, January 29th:  Simply Forties