I'm not your regular. Soon after I graduated from college, I started my job as part of the great events team at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. I had the supreme honor of working with the literary legend Kim Ricketts, through whom we were able to bring acclaimed authors like Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Gates Sr., Madeleine Albright, Chris Brogan, Daniel Goleman and more to share business acumen and general life wisdom with our members. Through my time at the Chamber, I'd accumulated a personal library dominated by biographies and non-fiction, mostly business & marketing-related books. This trend continues to this day. I'm more fascinated by the stories of trials and success by real people than I am with fiction works.* Powerhouse entrepreness Melody Biringer is no different.

Melody is the founder and face of The CRAVE Company based here in Seattle. She's behind the famous CRAVE parties, CRAVE city guides and events in over 25 cities around the world. A self-described "startup junkie", CRAVE is actually her twentieth business! In her new book, CRAVING SUCCESS: a startup junkie's path from passion to profits, Melody takes us through a lifetime of valuable lessons from those twenty businesses. Each chapter is neatly wrapped with "Uh-Ohs" and "Ahas", summarizing Melody's successes and learned lessons.

Passing the time along at UW graduation :)

I've been a fan of CRAVE long before I could even attend the parties, and had the pleasure of working with Melody last year on CRAVE Seattle. Something I really admire about her is her raw honesty. Driven by her passion of helping women entrepreneurs find success, she will often ask the kinds of questions you know you need to hear but either don't want to or don't know how to answer just yet. The kinds of questions that need to be answered. Though I'd heard many of the stories in CRAVING SUCCESS, I was excited to read through and absorb it. You can tell that Melody poured her heart out into this book, and into each of the lightbulbs that went off in her mind to eventually become a full-blown business. I definitely recommend adding this to your summer reading list!

Find CRAVING SUCCESS on Amazon.

*This rule does not apply to Roman & Greek literature nor the Harry Potter & Twilight series :)