The magical method of making the move from mediocre to mesmerising

“It is your attitude not your aptitude that determines your altitude...”

With this piece of home-spun wisdom Elizabeth Macnish begins her guidebook on how to pick yourself off the floor after life has dealt you a stunning blow. Elizabeth writes with the victim’s experience. This gives her advice the aura of present-day reality and good sense and that makes her book worth reading.

For those contemplating or practicing self-destruction in one way or another, following failures in the market, in marriage or in their jobs, this racy little gem will first disassemble them, bit by bit, with advice like “see your creditors before they see you ...” or ...“groom yourself”… and “don’t share your thoughts with every man and his dog”... and then reassemble them into a more aware and successful version of themselves.

Even those who think they have arrived may find they have not.

Uli Schmetzer
Author and former Foreign Correspondent for Reuters News Agency and the Chicago Tribune

* * *

Too many people say "I could write a book about this or that" but they rarely do. “Get a pen and write it” I say.

Before she started dispensing her own advice, Elizabeth Macnish took mine and was then inspired by greater forces. She found that pen, and the inspiration to write this book. After all, how could anyone possibly tell people how to live their lives if they don’t fully live theirs.

Macnish has taken the concept of a self-help book to an art form. Full of witticisms, In Your Face tells us all a few home truths whether we like them or not. She gives us that sometimes-needed kick up the bum, forcing us to put our life under the microscope then own it and take responsibility for it.

Her tales are sometimes sad, a bit outrageous, maybe even offensive and unapologetically politically incorrect. And her quirky turn of phrase gives a great belly laugh.

This book is short and fast paced. Maybe it's not the sort of book I'd normally read but I'm glad I have. You will be too.

Whatever, it’s definitely In Your Face

Kevin Moloney
Chairman, International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association (Australasia)