Books Are Back, Baby
While there were always plenty of books in the house growing up, I was never a voracious reader. Then, somewhere after college, I got the reading bug. I devoured books — fiction, non-fiction, classics, contemporary — I read them all. I had so much lost ground to make up for. There was one year in my late twenties in which I read fifty books! While I have yet to exceed that high water mark of almost a book a week I continued to read extensively for years.
That is, until Internet came along. My pace of reading dropped to a trickle in the last few years. Between 2004 and 2008 I read less than three books per year, and one year I read only one book. Ouch!
I am proud to report that in 2009 I got my reading mojo back. I read a dozen books this year. I don’t think it is a coincidence that 2009 was also the year that I got a Kindle (even though only half of the books I read were available in Kindle format). In the age of gadgets and electronics, the Kindle has made reading fun again. After almost a decade of wandering aimlessly in the Internet wasteland of too many RSS subscriptions I have rediscovered the depth and quality of well-written books.
Here are the books I read in 2009:
- The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
- Flawless Consulting, Peter Block
- Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
- Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz
- Million Dollar Consulting, Alan Weiss
- Co-Active Coaching, Laura Whitworth, et. al.
- The Bigger Game, Rick Tamlyn, et. al.
- Paranoia, Joseph Finder
- Escape from Cubicle Nation, Pamela Slim
- The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
- Back Sense, Siegel, Urgang, Johnson
- Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Institute
With the exception of The Lost Symbol, I would highly recommend each book on the list. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Outliers. Wow! The the ideas in that book turned my head inside out. An excellent read.
I am already three-fourths of the way into two books and it is only January 04. If all goes well, 2010 promises to be a rich year for reading as well.
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About Heather
Heather Hollick has been helping others become better leaders and craft more meaningful careers for more than 25 years. Her experience spans both business and technology, operations and organizational development. Oh, and she was born in Canada, so she can't help but be helpful. 😉