Second Acts That Change Lives: Making a Difference in the World

This self-help from journalist and columnist Sammons takes its inspiration from people across the country who have risked their livelihoods to find successful and rewarding career shifts. Their wide-ranging stories also add depth to Sammons's take-charge advice: Nadine Condon, for example, spent years helping musicians become rich and famous as a music industry executive; feeling incomplete, she started volunteering at a hospice before taking a paid position running their patient advocacy program. Claudia Kawczynska, a San Francisco economic consultant, co-founded, and currently supports herself as editor-in-chief of, a literary life-with-dogs magazine called ""Bark."" Each profile covers the same bases, including ""life before the leap,"" the epiphany, the ""view from the other side"" and general inspiration. Sammons can push her point too hard (Chapter One: ""Wake up! Life's half over!""), perhaps downplaying the real risks involved; at other times (especially in breakout quotes from the likes of Hemingway and Joan Didion), she strikes a strangely foreboding tone.