Best Advert for Starbucks

My weekend read was "How Starbucks Saved My Life" by Michael Gates Gill. Gill is the son of renowned New Yorker writer Brendan Gill and he was a creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising where he was employed for over 25 years. At age 53, he was downsized from work and after that an affair ended his 20 year marriage. He was later diagnosed with brain tumor which further complicated things for him.

Gill had hobnobbed with Queen Elizabeth, Hemmingway,T. S. Eliot and Jackie Onassis, took up a job at Starbucks as a barista-in-training to come out of his looming poverty and negativity. The book details Gill's job and his interactions with his Afro American colleagues at the Starbucks outlet. How he overcomes his prejudices about race, work and human relationships forms the story.
The flashbacks are a little distracting to the flow, but nevertheless are essential to depict two different worlds that Gill was part of.
On the whole it is a sweet memoir, written by a very gracious employee of Starbucks. It is best endorsement that Starbucks could have ever thought of and every Corporate would like their employees to write such books. In the bargain, Gill would have also made a tidy sum from both his publisher and Starbucks.