February was a good month for reading. I am currently in the middle of The Rise of the Robots and expect to finish it over the next couple of days. For March, I am only going to declare four books to read. I need to catch up and I have a trip scheduled in a couple of weeks. I will be heading to San Diego to attend the Social Media Marketing World conference. I am confident that I will pick up a couple books on the way but I do not know what they will be, yet. Right now, I am on pace to meet my goals. So far, I have knocked 5 books off my 12 books Modern Mrs. Darcy reading challenge. This is what I plan for March. Come read along with me.
For March, I will continue to focus on my reading shelf. All four books are coming from that shelf. A couple of the books are about improving processes, there is one on leadership, and the last one is President Obama’s The Audacity of Hope.
Here is what is on my reading list for March 2019:
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser
I spend a lot of time writing and I realize that I am not a great writer. I am always looking for advice to improve what I create. This book has been recommended on podcasts and on other blogs. I am looking forward to what I can learn.
Via Amazon:
On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and the warmth of its style. It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet.
Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.
TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments by Douglas Conant and Mette Norgaard
I picked up TouchPoints at an Association for Talent Development (ATD) conference. I believe the lessons to be found in this book are in line with emotional intelligence which I have been focusing on this year. Based on my recent behavior, I need more work 😉
Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition (Collins Business Essentials) by Geoffrey Moore
I also picked up this book at an ATD conference. This book also addresses one of my weak areas. Being in a service industry for my entire working career, I never had to focus on marketing and selling. It is an area I want to understand better.
Via Amazon:
The bible for bringing cutting-edge products to larger markets—now revised and updated with new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing.
In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore shows that in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle—which begins with innovators and moves to early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards—there is a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements in productivity. The challenge for innovators and marketers is to narrow this chasm and ultimately accelerate adoption across every segment.
This third edition brings Moore’s classic work up to date with dozens of new examples of successes and failures, new strategies for marketing in the digital world, and Moore’s most current insights and findings. He also includes two new appendices, the first connecting the ideas in Crossing the Chasm to work subsequently published in his Inside the Tornado, and the second presenting his recent groundbreaking work for technology adoption models for high-tech consumer markets.
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
Written before Barack Obama became President, this book outlines his vision for the future. Having never read it, I would like to see how it compares to what actually transpired.
Via Amazon:
In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Obama called “the audacity of hope.”
The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama’s call for a different brand of politics—a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces—from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media—that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment.
At the heart of this book is Barack Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats—from terrorism to pandemic—that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy—where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories about family, friends, and members of the Senate is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus.
A public servant and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a skeptic, and above all a student of history and human nature, Barack Obama has written a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes—“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”
That’s it for this month — I want to hear what good books YOU’VE read lately! Please share in the comments below.
If you missed previous months in 2019, you can still check them out: January | February
My Reviews for This Reading List
- Book Review: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
- Books Review: Crossing the Chasm
- Books Review: TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments
- Books Review: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Keep on reading!
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