This is a collection of books I recommend that my clients add to their libraries. Some are from guests I have had on my radio show while others may be a good reference book for improving your communications skills, a historical book or a novel to help the reader gain perspective during personally challenging times.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
This is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. If you want to find out what makes us tick, why we do the things we do, and how we achieve joy in life this book is well worth the investment in time and brain cells. Once you've digested it you will never be the same.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of
"optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience
genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness,
we can discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our
lives.
WOE IS I - an awesome book. Like most people, I struggle with some of the complexities of grammar. I found this book and love it. That's why I recommend this book to all of my communications coaching clients. Proof that good things do come in small packages.
Written by Patricia T. O'Conner, an editor at the New York Times Book Review, Woe Is I
gives lighthearted, witty instruction on the subject most of us dreaded
in school--grammar. Discussion is brief and concise, and much more
engaging than the grammar books you may remember.
Buy it. Put it on the shelf in your office. Get one for each of your kids. They will thank you for it.
The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time (In Two Lines or Less)
You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of
the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English
language in two lines or less. Edited by entrepreneur John M. Shanahan,
who created the wildly successful Hooked on Phonics program, this
wonderful book presents the best that has been thought and said on
every imaginable topic.
Guest Author Book: Cheri Ruskus
THE VICTORY LETTERS
In The Victory Letters, my friend and author Cheri Ruskus opens her heart and
her life to her readers as she leaps into the writer’s world with a
perspective of victory found in the small details of every day life.
The
letters contained in this book are taken from her weekly e-mail letter
sent to friends, family and colleagues over the past several years.
Cheri has achieved a following of weekly readers by taking real life,
every day experiences and finding the victories available to each of us.
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
Here's a personal growth guidebook that's won the admiration and
recommendation of Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of England. He calls this
"a brilliant, practical guide to awakening and training our vast,
unused resources of intelligence and ability." Author Michael Gelb,
founder of High Performance Learning and consultant for companies
including AT&T and National Public Radio, says that we all can
unlock the "da Vincian" genius inside us.
THE ART OF POSSIBILITY by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander The lure of this book's promise starts with the assumption in its
title. Possibility--that big, all-encompassing, wide-open-door
concept--is an art? Well, who doesn't want to be a skilled artist,
whether in the director's chair, the boardroom, on the factory floor,
or even just in dealing with life's everyday situations? Becoming an
artist, however, requires discipline, and what the authors offer is a set of practices designed to "initiate a new approach to
current conditions, based on uncommon assumptions about the nature of
the world."
This book changed my whole attitude about the teaching and coaching processes.
The Souls of Animals by Gary Kowalski
When we lost our first beagle, Corky, prematurely it left a giant hole in my heart. This book helped me understand the nature of the universe, how all souls are connected, and the real value of pet companionship that is such a characteristic of the human experience. If you own a pet, have had one, and have felt that certain connection, this book will help you understand it.
Enjoy! If you would like to know more about a particular selection, drop me an email. I'd be happy to talk to you about the book.
Guest Author Book: Carmine Coco De Young
A LETTER TO MRS. ROOSEVELT Carmine Coco De Young uses her own family history to create a
Depression-era story about first-generation Italian-Americans living in
Johnstown, Pa., in 1933. Eleven-year-old Margo Bandini, her parents and
young brother, Charlie, face losing their house if they do not find a
way to pay back the bank loan used to cover hospital expenses for
Charlie's emergency leg operation.
This is a wonderful story to share with your kids about growing up in tough times.
LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel
There is not a single person to whom I have recommended this book that hasn't said it was life altering, gripping, fascinating and wonderpously surprising right to the end.
This imaginative and unforgettable story is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. It is shocking, funny and inspirational.
A PATRIOT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Finally an American History book that tells it like it was and is, without bias - worts and all. It renewed my belief that we are a strong nation in both people and ideals.
There are a thousand pleasant surprises and heartening reminders that
underneath it all America remains a country of ideas, ideals, and
optimism—and no amount of revisionism can take that legacy away. -- John Coleman, Humane Studies Review
1776 This is the one book that can help you understand the passion and struggle of the patriots who sacrificed all, often paying with their blood, for the creation of a free and bountiful country. You can't be an American and not read this book.
Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the
momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping
narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the
beginning of the American Revolution.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
First published in 1957. this book is a brilliant defense of the capitalist ideal so fundamental to a free and progressive society. The book's female protagonist, Dagny Taggart,
struggles to manage a transcontinental railroad amid the pressures and
restrictions of massive bureaucracy. It is as relevant today as it was over sixty years ago - perhaps more so.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
What is the value of intellectual property in a free society? The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature,
more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a
story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in
the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper
columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of
universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good
and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes,
along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this
book its enduring influence.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan
When I was little there was a family in our neighborhood with 11 kids. They were always happy, playful and so full of life. If they were suffering it didn't show. Lots of families have troubles and obstacles to overcome.
Terry Ryan writes about her mother, Evelyn, in an incredibly inspiring account of one woman's ability to rise above the circumstances of her life and celebrate the joy of family while providing dignity and grace for her 10 children. A lesser woman might have succumbed to poverty, but she was determined
to keep her family financially afloat and to teach her children that
the life of the mind was important. In the early 1950s, she started
entering contests, composing her jingles, poems, and essays at the
ironing board.