The Architecture of All Abundance: Creating a Successful Life in the Material World

Lenedra Carroll, the mother and manager of singer/songwriter Jewel, offers a memoir that speaks to her spiritual theories on creating abundance. The Architecture of All Abundance, her "rag to riches" life story, starts out when the author is a young girl growing up poor in a small Alaskan village and winds up with Carroll becoming a successful CEO of a global entertainment enterprise. More than a memoir, this is more accurately an inspirational book on how you too can build a fulfilling life that includes plenty of spirit and prosperity. Carroll emphasizes the timeless truths of spiritual abundance--ones that readers have probably heard before: listen to your soul's voice, ask the right questions, make time for stillness, own the fear instead of avoiding it, remember that generosity generates prosperity. Yet, like any effective teacher, Carroll has the ability to package these nuggets of wisdom with just the right anecdote or just the right phrasing so that it finally sinks in. It's not uncommon to find provocative passages such as, "We can all realize that while the fear is real, it is also true that what we fear is like a mirage rising off the heat of a projected or past pain." Although her structure of alternating poetry, personal stories, and spiritual advice makes the book slightly disjointed, Carroll's eloquence as a narrator ties it together. --Gail Hudson