Thursday, May 14, 2009

17-20: 52 Books In 52 Weeks...

Book 17/52: "Animal Farm" by George Orwell, 4/5 Stars
Orwell is just a trip... say no more other than "classic."




Book 18/52: "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20" by Tina Seelig, 4/5 Stars
My expectation going into this book was that I was going to get a witty jaunt through life’s simple rules, much like I’d gotten from Fulgham many times over in my reading history. As it turns out, I got something very different. Though I was disappointed that I didn’t get to skip don the path of enlightenment, Seelig provides a very logical pair of goggles with which she’s asking you to use to look at your life.

“Boundless opportunities result from extracting yourself from your comfort zone, being willing to fail, having a healthy disregard for the impossible, and seizing every opportunity to be fabulous. The most interesting things in life happen when you get off the predictable path, when you challenge assumptions, and when you give yourself permission to see the world as opportunity rich and full of possibility.”

I stumbled upon this book at an interesting time, for I’d recently struggled to find my new place in life (I literally stumbled upon it while trying to maneuver around a rocking boat). It wasn’t until I dropped a few f-bombs and decided to pursue some personal, not professional, opportunities that the professional ones started to knock on my door. When I was younger, I had a great post where I was able to travel to a few universities, as a fellow student, and speak about whatever I wanted to speak about—my topic was always about finding a profession that satisfies your soul and your pocketbook; one will follow the other if you stay true to yourself and are willing to take the risk. I fell off that track for a little while, but I feel like I’m reaching up to get back on it.

Book 19/52: "The Age Of Engage" by Denise Shiffman, 3/5 Stars
I’m following Sanders’ tenets about finding success from your passion by having an unquenchable thirst for knowledge (and reading every book in your industry that you can find), building my network and sharing both my knowledge and my network with compassion. My local Barnes & Noble is very happy with my recent visits.

“The Age Of Engage” is one of those books where I have to realize that I will find at least one thing in it that I didn’t know before or one recommended book to read from the examples that the author gives. Why? Because I’m so connected to the world of new marketing already that I know this stuff. The benefit to reading a book where I know the content, more often than not, is that while the front of my mind is reading the back of my mind is going to town on how to apply the concepts in my realm.

Brands are still learning that they are transparent whether they like it or not and slowly coming to the realization that they can be proactive or reactive in their relationship with customers. So, start trustworthy conversations with your customers that are transparent, open, collaborative and engaging.

Book 20/52: "Oath Of Gold" by Elizabeth Moon, 5/5 Stars
Book three of the trilogy, "Oath Of Gold." From the discovery of the sword as an heirloom, I couldn't stop reading and loved the end of it. Taking the time to understand more than they way you were brought up--diversity-- and accepting it is key to understanding the rest of the world and finding your way in it. From beginning to end, 4 years? That's astounding growth for someone over that short amount of time.

GOAL: 52 books in 52 weeks!

Book #16 = "Divided Allegiance" by Elizabeth Moon, 3/5 Stars
Book #15 = "The Curious Incident of the Dog..." by Mark Haddon, 2/5 Stars
Book #14 = "The Sheepfarmer's Daughter" by Elizabeth Moon, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #13 = "Love Is The Killer App" by Tim Sanders, 4/5 Stars
Book #12 = "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk, 4.5/5 Stars
Book #11 = "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, 5/5 Stars
Book #10 = "The Finder" by Colin Harrison, 3.5/5 Stars
Book #9 = "Veronika Decides To Die" by Paulo Coelho, 1/5 Stars
Book #8 = "By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept" by Paulo Coelho, 3/5 Stars
Book #7 = "Stiff" by Mary Roach, 2/5 Stars
Book #6 = "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, 1/5 Stars
Book #5 = "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, 3/5 Stars
Book #4 = "Eleven Minutes" by Paulo Coelho, 2/5 Stars
Book #3 = "The Good Guy" by Dean Koontz, 3/5 Stars
Book #2 = "My Ishmael" by Dan Quinn, 2/5 Stars

Book #1 = "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho, 3.5/5 Stars

READ MORE!

2 comments:

Natasha2marie said...

I love Orwell. He wrote an essay entitled "Why I write," a pretty honest assessment of writing in general and his writing in particular.

"Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole...And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw

Robert Zamees said...

"Why I write..." Stay sane. ;-)