Matt McAvoy Book Review

An imaginative and highly creative take on motivation and life coaching by a non-fiction author who is entertaining and engaging.  Lew infuses large swathes of personality and humour into his writing, and is very easy to relate to.  He clearly has huge interest and knowledge of his field of expertise: the military history of ancient China.  Using popular fables and anecdotes from this long, eventful period, he goes on to apply the lessons of the time to how we approach life generally in the modern world, and he does so articulately, with a real sense of fun.

The fables are given some sort of overall context by their correlation to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, though I have to be honest and say that here is where I start to miss the association a little.  The book seems to use quotations and references from the very short classic publication to go on and provide some introduction to the fables, but in my opinion he needn’t; I would even go as far as to say that citing The Art of War in this way doesn’t really add anything of value to his otherwise very unambiguous and concise book.  It seems to present the teachings of Sun Tzu and apply them to the subsequent lessons quite subjectively – it does bring to mind a little those who selectively interpret religious texts like the Bible and the Quran to suit their discourse.  This refreshingly energetic author has obviously put a huge amount of hard work, research and knowledge of the overall subject into his book, but I would personally have liked to see a much clearer linear structure to its context, throughout; as it is, it feels a bit scattergun – interesting and entertaining, but difficult to keep traction with, because there doesn’t appear a smooth and clearly defined route to its narrative.

Arguably the best section of the book is the Appendix, which delves more deeply into the lives of the historical figures featured in his book, and the brutal and ruthless feudal world they lived in.  In my opinion, it is worth reading the book if even just for this section alone, and I’m not exaggerating in saying that the genuine endearing quality of Lew’s work and passion into this episode in history improved my overall rating for this book.

Overall, despite my shortcomings about the narrative, I enjoyed this book, and I think you will too.  Lew is a nice writer to read, and I hope to read more from him.