Scrappy Startups by Melanie Keveles

Scrappy Startups: How 15 Ordinary Women Turned Their Unique Ideas Into Profitable Businesses.

Melanie Keveles profiles fifteen women who started their own businesses from scratch. Nancy Gruver started a media company, New Moon, that lets tween girls write articles for girls in their age group. Bev Halisky started a driving service for the elderly because she saw a need. Many seniors had no one to drive them to their doctor's appointments. Halisky's Canadian-based business has generated several franchises.

Possibly the most impressive business, however, is the one started in a war zone. Sarah Chayes, a journalist for National Public Radio, started an Arghand Cooperative in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Hoping to spur economic development in the area, Sarah started a high-end soap company. She uses native agriculture e.g. pomegranate seeds and pistachios to create natural soaps and then exports them as luxury products. Though Sarah's business is successful, it is also a personal mission.

Scrappy Startups is full of wonderful businesses started by women who did not necesarily have a business background. Many of these businesses were started by women who saw a social need e.g. Cherry Brook Kitchen, 29 Gifts, Eco-Me, Arghand Cooperative. Questions at the end of each chapter may help budding entrepreneurs realize their business dreams.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine

The Blind Contessa's New Machine
Is this novel really about the machine as the title suggests? Since the machine, a typewriter, is what allows the blind Contessa to communicate with her lover its obviously pretty important.

But frustratingly, the novel doesn't tell us (or maybe its not meant to) what Pellegrini Turri's last letter relays. The Countess leaves his last missive on the bed even though a girl offers to read it to

her. We also don't know how much Antonio knows when he burns the typewriter. Typewriters at this time were apparently made almost entirely out of wood, except for the "type" plates.

The ending and the setting instantly remind me of a Henry Jamesian novel. The reader is left in the "dark" on purpose. What we don't know about characters is just as important as what we do know.

The novel does make me eager to learn the Carolina Fantoni and Pellegrini Turri's history. It leaves readers with a delightful scent of lemons, winding rivers, and fanciful dreams. Though Carolina's fate is tragic the novel also leaves readers with a new appreciation for the lengths someone will go through to find a chance of happiness.

Becasue there are so many open ended questions, this novel would make a wonderful book club selection.