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How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else | 
| Author: Michael Gates Gill
Publisher: Gotham
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy Used: $1.25
You Save: $21.75 (95%)
New (56) Used (68) Collectible (3) from $1.25
Rating:  114 reviews
Sales Rank: 26143
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1592402860
Dewey Decimal Number: 647.95092
EAN: 9781592402861
ASIN: 1592402860
Publication Date: September 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house in the suburbs, a loving family, and a top job at an ad agency with a six-figure salary. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement. First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, prognosis undetermined. Around the same time, his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects.
One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury a latte brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform. For the first time in his life, Gill was a minority--the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his ingrained prejudices and admit to himself that, far from being beneath him, his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite having half the education and twice the personal difficulties he d ever faced, were running circles around him.
The other baristas treated Gill with respect and kindness despite his differences, and he began to feel a new emotion: gratitude. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained. One that everyone, especially Michael s kids, liked a lot better.
The backdrop to Gill's story is a nearly universal cultural phenomenon: the Starbucks experience. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, we step behind the counter of one of the world's best-known companies and discover how it all really works, who the baristas are and what they love (and hate) about their jobs. Inside Starbucks, as Crystal and Mike s friendship grows, we see what wonders can happen when we reach out across race, class, and age divisions to help a fellow human being.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 109 more reviews...
 A Make You Think Read November 17, 2008
G E. Learned (Brooklyn Center, MN USA)
I gave this book three stars. I found the overall book good, and it does make you sit back and think a bit about your own life, and your priorities. I found the style of the book, with constant flashbacks got annoying after a time. It was easy to lose the thread of the discussion. I think if the book was 2/3 it's size, it would be excellent. I would also reduce the price 20%
How Starbucks Save My Life October 27, 2008
Target Lover (Baltimore, MD)
Let me start out by saying, as others have, that I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, while the premise was interesting, the actual book was a chore to read. Also, as it went on, I found myself liking Michael less and less.
The constant namedropping quickly begins to wear thin, especially when he mentions meeting Queen Elizabeth and Frank Sinatra within only a few pages of each other. It's as if he needs to constantly remind the reader that he was once "somebody", in order to validate his existence.
To me the entire tone of the book, even the title, seemed condescending.
I wanted to stop reading it about half way through, but I forced myself to keep going, hoping for some revelation or insight. The last fifty pages were particularly painful, especially those poems to his coworkers--and this guy was supposed to be a great writer?
I gave the book three stars because I do believe it was written with good intentions.
 Overrated October 13, 2008
Janice (Arlington, VA)
Michael Gates Gill's "How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else" is a story of how the author who had to work in Starbucks as a barista after being laid off from a major corporation. He subsequently lost his family when he cheated on his wife. Overnight, it seemed as though Gill lost everything that matters to him. With no prospect and lots of bill, Gill took a job as a barista in Starbucks. The book chronicled how the job changed his outlook in life, and helped to make him a better person.
The premise of the book was interesting. However, I did not enjoy the frequent flashbacks of his WASPy lifestyle or his encounters with various celebrities or famous individuals. It seemed as though the author was too eager to show he was *somebody* who had connections with those individuals. The book started out very promising, but very quickly it lost its appeal. It was also not well written or edited. Mostly, the book was too much of a cliche for me.
 Wonderful Read -- thought provoking October 13, 2008
GB
Great book -- couldn't put it down. Very thoughtful -- made me consider how I was living my life and my true purpose. One of those books that you would read over again, to remind yourself about life's meaning.
I loved it! October 12, 2008
Happiness (bellevue, wa United States)
I finished it in one day! I thought he sent a very clear message; it does not matter your age, or the background you come from, you can find happiness in your work, friends, and life. It is never too late to start over, and be who you might have been...happy and fulfilled. So what if he found it at Starbucks, and promoted them. It is a story about how Starbucks saved his life!!! Hello..Starbucks is going to be showcased! He still took the time to talk about all the wonderful people he has met, and even shared the life lessons he learned along the way to where he is now, and yes that means working at Starbucks. Think how you would feel if a company helped pull your life back together. I know I would not mind building them up as much as I could, and announcing to the world all the great things they have done for me and others. I will keep a copy of this book on my shelf! Loved it!!
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