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February 06, 2007
Books I Read During January
New Total: 111
The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide--Knowing What to Do and When to Do It
by Michael Useem
Amazon: “The Go Point is a tour de force of a tour through battlefields and boardrooms, illuminating the differences between brilliant and tragic decisions. Michael Useem is a wise, witty, and understanding guide whose insights can dramatically improve leadership and decision-making skills. Go for it!” —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin and End
My Review:I got this book during a Barnes and Noble spree designed to help me figure out the next steps for the Big Idea. It was interesting, but didn't really tell me anything particularly new and reality-bending. As much as the author touts the genius of using examples to learn basic decision-making principles, I could have done with less examination of wildfire fighting. Personally, I think Useem had a childhood dream of being a firefighter and used this book as an example to go play with the big boys.
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Grow Fast Grow Right: 12 Strategies to Achieve Break-Through Business Growth
by Andrew J Sherman
Book Description: The first book in this series, Grow Fast, Grow Right, provides business owners and executives the complex methods they need for smart and efficient growth. Focusing on Human Capital, Financial Capital, and Intellectual Capital, the three major pillars that form the foundation for effective business growth, this resource teaches businesses to break through current growth ceilings and overcome challenges by using their 12 Grow Fast Grow Right Value Drivers.
My Review: Meh. I thought this book was going to change the Big Idea forever. It took me a week to read the first chapter, since I wanted to commit every nugget of information to memory. Then I got to Chapter Two and realized that the vast majority of this information was designed for start-ups looking to be the next Amazon.com. Not exactly relevant to a simple girl trying to figure out if she should hire full-time employees or stay with a freelance model.
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The Feast of Love: A Novel
by Charles Baxter
Publishers Weekly: Baxter (First Light, Harmony of the World, Believers) has for too long been a writer's writer whose books have enjoyed more admirers than sales. Pantheon appears confident that his new novel can be his breakout work. It certainly deserves to be. In a buoyant, eloquent and touching narrative, Baxter breaks rules blithely as he goes along, and the reader's only possible response is to realize how absurd rules can be. Baxter begins, for example, as himself, the author, waking in the middle of the night and going out onto the predawn streets of Ann Arbor (where Baxter in fact lives). Meeting a neighbor, Bradley Smith, with his dog, also called Bradley, he is told the first of the spellbinding stories of love--erotic, wistful, anxious, settled, ecstatic and perverse--that make up the book, woven seamlessly together so they form a virtuosic ensemble performance.
My Review: This was a book club selection from several years ago--one that I missed for a reason that now escapes me. Ms. Wish to See lent it to me several months ago and I just now got around to reading it. I did enjoy it, although I wouldn't necessarily call it "a virtuosic ensemble performance". But it was quick, and a nice break from business tomes.
Comments
"The Feast of Love" was my choice - I adore it! Of course I am a biased source.
Posted by: Elizabeth at February 6, 2007 09:04 AM
