Spoons Are For Stirring Coffee


Non-Fiction - Memoir
336 Pages
Reviewed on 10/14/2013
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

Author Biography

Austin Coats is an American writer from Fort Smith, AR. He graduated from Greenwood High School in 2003 and attended the University of Arkansas.

His debut memoir, Spoons Are For Stirring Coffee, is a firsthand account of his recovery from substance abuse and addiction. He wrote the first chapter of this memoir while homeless in Delray Beach, FL in 2008. Knowing he wasn't ready to turn his life around, and knowing there was more destruction ahead, Austin put the pen down while his story played out. Three years later, after getting clean and sober, he picked the pen back up and finished the final 14 chapters of Spoons Are For Stirring Coffee.

Coats has been acclaimed for his unique, detail-driven writing style, his brilliant and hilarious metaphorical use, and an unfailing ability to make the reader feel visually and emotionally present in the story.

He now lives in Rogers, AR and is working on a second book.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Bil Howard for Readers' Favorite

While enjoying a view of the frosted tips of the Colorado Rockies and feeling the crisp air of spring, Spoons Are for Stirring Coffee looks backward into the life of Austin Coats and his struggle with addiction. The journey to that point was one of restoration, a comeback which began with insurmountable odds. It was a trip which began in small town Arkansas as the dreams of an athletic teen came to a screeching halt one Friday night under the lights of a football field. The result was emptiness and a hole which had to be filled. Austin had been so satiated by his dream and the fulfillment of it that when it was suddenly ripped from him he had to have something more. So he continued striving to get more, much more. The new drive and motivation took him from prescription drugs to illegal drugs in a spiraling addiction that carried him from a well-to-do family with plenty of promise for the future to the streets of South Florida and homelessness. It was on the plains of Africa where three little Kenyan boys taught him a remarkable truth without speaking a word; from that lesson, the seed of his comeback was planted. The seed took root in Colorado and Austin became a new man.

The comeback of Austin Coats, in Spoons Are for Stirring Coffee, is a story which will take the reader through the entire cycle of emotions countless times. From pain to laughter, from tears of heartache to tears of joy, from uncontrollable anger and fear to quiet tranquility; with the turning of each page the reader will find a new emotion stirring and at times will want to scream at Austin for the decisions he made. Ultimately, however, all of the emotions will transform into one of joy at the love and redemption that Austin found and the unshakable faith which delivered him back to God and back to his family. Honest, gut-wrenching and triumphant; Spoons Are for Stirring Coffee is a roller coaster ride on every possible emotion which ends in triumph and joy.