Work/Life Books by Working Women

A short list of work/life advice books was published in the April, 2013 of The Atlantic magazine. The list was included as a sidebar to an article about Miss Education Why women's success in higher education hasn't led to more female leaders by Garance Franke-Ruta.

The article compares the success rates of women earning degrees  including master's and doctoral degrees to the low percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs that are women. A staggering low 4.2 percent of CEOs are women. The other end of the spectrum shows the majority of people over the age of 25 with college degrees are women.

Four highly successful women including the COO of Facebook, a radio talk show co-host, a former magazine editor and a former Hearst Magazines chair have written books with savvy advice for the working woman who wants to be successful both in their work and family and life outside of work.

The book list included the following:

• Lean In Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO
• Knowing Your Value by Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe radio show
• I Shouldn't Be Telling You This Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know by Kate White, former Cosmopolitan editor
• Basic Black by Cathie Black, former Hearst Magazines chair

I've read Knowing Your Value and it was informative and would make a helpful guide to any woman looking for success in life and in work. Check out these titles and post your feedback.

Two Organizations that Promote Reading

There a number of great organizations that promote reading to children and adults. Two longtime organizations include Get Caught Reading and First book. I've included links to both below.

The Get Caught Reading program has been around for over a decade. I've implemented Get Caught Reading campaigns at past places of employment and it is a fun and encouraging activity for the workplace. Let your imagination run a bit and consider finding a way to implement a campaign at the office, the school where you teach or work, at a non-profit or a medical facility.

You will be surprised by how much people really want to share what they are reading with others.

http://www.getcaughtreading.org/

The second organization promoting reading is also doing a great job of getting the word out about the benefits of reading. The website says they have distributed over 100 million books in the United States and Canada. I've been involved with literacy groups in the past and it always amazed me how many young children don't have access to books at home or out of school. It was always a gratifying event when one of the literacy groups gave out free books to elementary and middle school children.

Many of the kids were just so happy to receive a book they could take home and call their own. The First Book story will inspire you to get more involved in getting books into the hands of as many children as you can. Check it out!

http://www.firstbook.org/

The Golden Age of American Book Design

Keeping track of appointments is meaningful in a number of ways. First, the obvious reason is to make sure you get where you are supposed to be and get there on time. Second, recording appointments can end up as a journal of your professional life.

I keep two appointment schedules. One is a digital schedule on my smartphone and the second is a written format in a datebook. It takes a bit of extra time to enter appointments in both but it works for me and I really don't mind the extra work. At the end of each year, I store the datebook in a filing cabinet and move onto the new year with a new datebook.

The purpose of writing about this personal practice is that my latest datebook contains colorful reprints of book covers from books published over two centuries. Every other page includes a picture of one of the artful book covers with details of who (those that are known) created the artwork on the covers. The covers presented are from the 1880s and early 1990s and include book titles such as:

• Mr. Bodley Abroad
• How to Know the Wild Flowers
• The House in the Water 
• I and My True Love
• Mother Earth
• Kalee's Shrine

Works of art are usually thought to be created on canvas and found hanging on walls in museums and homes around the world. Or, the thousands of sculptures made from normal everyday materials or the more obscure materials such as junk metal are seen as great works of art. Many collectors find art in album and CD covers for various musical groups.

Now, I'll be able to find works of art in the books I read and collect. The realization of book cover art for me will add a new dimension to my reading experience. I'll be able to enjoy the words in the book and the graphics on the cover. While the datebook I purchased for 2013 contains covers from works of past centuries, if you look through your bookshelves for some of today's titles, you'll surely find covers that will wow you.

Discovering book cover art may not be a grand revelation for most readers. For me, it is a new craft to be aware of as I start my 2013 year of reading and reviewing some great books with great titles and hopefully some great covers.

For those that still make new year resolutions, read more books is a great one to commit to in the upcoming year.

Holiday Book Lists

The 2012 Christmas shopping season has officially started. The holiday sales ads and emails are coming at us nonstop in the newspapers, on television, online and in magazines. Kids and adults are making their shopping and their wish lists and checking them twice. Other lists are making the rounds too, the season's reading lists.

Columnists all over the country are making their recommendations and offering up short lists of the thousands of books that line the bookshelves of the brick and mortar and the virtual bookstores. I'm about to add to those highly respected and highly read lists of books that make great gifts. I love giving books as gifts and love receiving books as gifts.

My current reading list includes four books that have made headlines over the past few months and a few that top the lists of enjoyable fiction books to read. I am either in the process of reading the following books, I have the books in waiting for me start reading or have them on my gift wish list.

The first is The Night Circus (Anchor Books, 2012) by Erin Morgenstern, the paperback edition was released over the summer. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and it is a fabulous read with an out-the-ordinary story line. Check it out, give it out and make your reader friends and family happy.

The second book I'm currently reading is The Racketeer (Doubleday, 2012) by John Grisham. I've only just begun to read Grisham's latest. I am one of those Grisham readers that really has not found a book of his that I haven't enjoyed. He is one of those authors that many readers feel cookie cuts his stories. To some extent those critics have a point because his plot lines seem to follow the same recipe. Nonetheless, I enjoy reading him and have great expectations for his latest book.




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Two books I have waiting on my office bookshelves for me to start reading include No Easy Day The Autobiography of a Navy Seal (Dutton, 2012) by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer and The Price of Politics (Simon & Schuster, 2012) by Bob Woodward. Both of  these books made plenty of headlines this past fall and I'm anxious to read both.

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Three books on my wish list include The Joy of Hate (Crown Forum, 2012) by Greg Gutfeld and Bill O'Reilly's two killing books, Killing Lincoln (Henry Holt and Co., 2011) and Killing Kennedy (Henry Holt and Co., 2012).

There seem to be a lot of historical books out there this season including a slew of titles related to President Abraham Lincoln. In addition to O'Reilly's popular title, I found a book titled The Lincolns by Daniel Mark Epstein and Rise to Greatness by David Von Drehle. There is a book about Joseph P. Kennedy called The Patriarch (The Penguin Press, 2012) by David Nasaw that I've read a review that makes the book sound highly readable.

There is plenty to read. Plenty of books to give. And, plenty of plot lines and historical perspective to enjoy. Happy reading to all and to all a good book under the tree this year.

Understanding the power of a good story

One of the most admired sports writers, Gary Smith (Sports Illustrated), shows his expertise in storytelling in a book full of a collection of his sports articles. The book, Sports Illustrated Going Deep 20 Classics Sports Stories (Sports Illustrated Books) was published in 2008 but the stories are still vibrant and relevant to learning the art of storytelling for any type of writer.

A few of the titles include:

• "Higher Education"
•  Deep in Ohio's Amish country, the unlikeliest of men changed a town's ideas about how to live.
• "The Chosen One"
•  Tiger Woods was raised by his father to believe he would change the world.
• "The Boys on the Bus"
• Three days after 9/11, the author, strange though it felt, took his son to a high school football game.

Those are just three of the titles offered in this book. The opening of "The Boys on the Bus"follows:

"Everything in the little town came to a halt at dusk on the day America mourned. Five police cars, blinking blue as they wove in escort, sealed off traffic and froze pedestrians in their paths. Drivers peeled to the shoulder of the road and stopped, waved and craned their necks to glimpse the passing procession."

The book is a great read and Gary Smith is an unbelievable writer. The book is good for sports writers and other types of writers that need to or want to weave a good story into their reporting.

Summer Book Reviews

Summer is a great time to read books - both fiction and nonfiction. Reading while sitting on the beach or pool side or while traveling to a vacation destination all make for great times to read. I've spent the summer trying to finish the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy. While the books are OK, they are not as spellbinding as I've read other reviewers write about the series. They have been a nice distraction from having to spend so much time inside an air conditioned building due to the unusual heat wave across the U.S.

I've also read many business books over the summer including a couple of good social media books. And, I'm currently reading the new Chris Spielman book, That's Why I'm Here, The Chris and Stefanie Spielman Story. I'm halfway through the book and it is a phenomenal read.

Here are few links to the some of the summer business and social media reading I've done this year. All of the reviews and many, many more are posted at www.suite101.com. I've been reviewing books and writing for the suite101 site for over 4 years. I hope you enjoy the reviews and possibly decide to read the books.

Social Marketology
http://suite101.com/article/social-marketology-book-review-a410522

Rapid Realignment
http://suite101.com/article/authors-write-about-the-main-thing-in-rapid-realignment-a409599

A new and different kind of personality test - The Fascination Advantage Test
http://suite101.com/article/personality-test-reveals-a-persons-natural-fascination-strength-a409201

The Art of Being Unreasonable
http://suite101.com/article/unreasonable-book-provides-lessons-in-conventional-thinking-a408418

2012 Writer's Market

I recently purchased the 91st Annual 2012 Writer's Market book published by Writer's Digest. As in past years, the book is huge and filled with potential resources to help new and seasoned writers to get their work published and to generate income.

There are sections of listings for literary agents, book publishers, consumer magazines, trade magazines, newspapers, screen writing, play writing, greeting cards and contests and awards. Each section is prefaced with a page of tips on getting published in that particular market. One of the best examples is in the greeting cards section which offers a paragraph on "Freelance Realities" stating that most greeting card writers are staff writers.

I've shelled out the cash for many of the Writer's Market books in the two decades I've been freelance writing. Most years the book has been highly useful and I've gotten my return on investment. This year however with the current economic disaster we have going on and with really no relief on the immediate horizon, the book has been sitting on my bookshelf.

Having earmarked the pages of interest with yellow postit notes, the magazines listed on those pages have either disappeared or are just not interested in freelancers this year. While the book may not be helping on the income side of my freelance accounting ledger, I still recommend this year's guide to freelancers just for the market information it does provide.

Any successful artist or writer will tell you that you need to keep up with the business side of your art or your dream life will become a hobby versus a journey. One example is the letter from the editor, Robert Lee Brewer. He writes, "There are few industries that have changed as dramatically as the publishing industry in the 21st century. For one thing, many publishing companies have re-branded themselves as media companies. For another thing, e-books are starting to sell more than printed books from majro online retailers."

Information on the changing world of writing, publishing and reading is as vital as the listings of potential work resources. Writer's Digest and the Writer's Market books have kept up with all of the changes and ways to adapt. It's worth the money.