Book Review The Secret Sabbatical by David Cawood

The Secret Sabbatical

David Cawood Ph. D.

If you are like me, you had one of those friends that seemed to know everything about just about everything.  Mine was named Tim.  Tim had a knack for telling the most interesting stories about things I never knew existed.  And to be honest, I never cared existed.  Somehow, Tim had a way of telling the story that held the attention of those of us around him.  We had no idea how he had the time to read all the things he read about so many different subjects.

The Secret Sabbatical is, in a way, very much like Tim.  The author, David Cawood Ph. D., tells us many fascinating stories about things some of us never knew about.  And, just like with Tim’s stories, I would not have cared about had Cawood not brought them to my attention.

Again, I must be honest with you.  I have not been a big reader of Shakespeare or many of the classics.  The author uses examples from Shakespeare, television shows, movies, long dead poets, a mathematician or two, as well as a brain scientist and several others to illustrate examples of how we should be viewing life in general.

This book is one that should not be plowed through.  Instead, one should read the book and when you get to the discussion of an outside source you should locate the book, movie, poem, old television show, or whatever else is referenced and watch or read it to see what Cawood is trying to teach.

Perhaps in the future Cawood will make the course that spawned this book available online so that his readers could use this book as a text to guide them through a self-paced course.

Cawood chooses Rumi, an old Persian poet, to guide readers through the book.  I must admit that I had never heard of Rumi and I am not of the mind that I can appreciate poetry written in other languages long ago.  

I cannot say that I understood anything Rumi was being used to teach in the book.  Perhaps Rumi has never been translated into redneck properly.  I am not completely sure that I understood what Cawood was trying to tell us through the use of Rumi as a guide.  

However, I do hold out hope that someday I will have that Aha moment when the penny drops and I become enlightened to what Cawood is attempting to teach me.

This book is not a quick read like Who Moved My Cheese?:.  It is not as rigorous a read as Good to Great by Jim Collins.  It is somewhere in between the two.  

Cawood introduces the reader to the world of fractals but, fortunately, he does not make we readers perform any type of mathematics in the course of the explanation.  We aren’t even required to perform any brain surgery when he speaks of brain science.  Pity.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying find themselves in this fast paced, social media intense world.  It appears to me that Cawood is trying to tell his readers to slow down, learn from great thinkers, and not so great thinkers from the past.

Kick back, put on a pot of coffee, start a CD of Baroque music, settle down in a comfortable spot, and prepare to become more enlightened.  Take a long leisurely stroll through the pages of
The Secret Sabbatical. You will be glad you did.

FTC Required notice:  The author, David Cawood, Ph. D. gave me the book for the purpose of reading it and writing a review.  I was under no obligation to give a positive review. 

I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html   Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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