Open, Honest, and Direct: A Guide to Unlocking Your Team's Potential - Aaron Levy

I like a good book on communications so I was pleased to receive this from a Goodreads giveaway. While this book's main focus was on inculcating open, honest and direct communication within a group from the leader's perspective, I always find that as a team member, I can also gain insights from this kind of text.

I read this on two legs of a cross-country, multi-state work trip, and I really took to heart the chapter on effective listening. We're all aware of the edict that we work on active listening. But despite knowing this, Open, Honest, and Direct gave me a very explicit instruction to listen to what my inner dialogue was doing when I was supposed to be listening. Sorry friends and co-workers, I have not done a good job. My inner dialogue runs from trying to race ahead the speaker to the point, to trying to figure out what I am going to have for dinner.

This book's real strength lies not in its content as much as it's design. See, Aaron Levy openly talks about what a waste multi-day seminars are that teach teach teach without any application. So Levy lays out the principles, then discusses how to put those into practice, but then MOST importantly, talks about the reflection that is needed for continuous improvement of these principles in action. This is where most leaders fail. I've encountered so many managers who know all the right buzz words to describe how a working environment should function, but they are terrible at actually practicing the principles they espouse.

3.5/5 Stars. 

The Slow Regard of Silent Things - Patrick Rothfuss

I was initially stoked when I realized Rothfuss had written an Auri-centered novella. I ordered The Slow Regard of Silent Things and when it arrived I peeked at the Goodreads reviews and then I got nervous. Some of the reviews are terrible. Rothfuss' preface even notes that people will not even like this book. But me? What can I say, I like it weird.

One of my favorite works is Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Giildenstern are Dead - an absurdist tale of what happens to two minor characters when they're not the focus of action in the major work. And I have been so curious about what happens to Auri when she's not on the rooftop with Kvothe in the Name of the Wind series. Well, now I know. She's very busy keeping the Underthing in Order.

Auri is a tragic character, terribly broken by experience and hardship, but she's also resourceful and while she seems scared and timid, she is actually playing by a rigid set of rules that only she understands. And in her world, in her mind, those rules are what keep the universe in order. It's a tall ask for a small person.

The language of the novella can be maddeningly confusing. I'm sure Rothfuss had an elaborate map or reference guide to keep it all straight. To write in Auri's voice for so long must have been a painstaking process. I'm glad he took the time, because no one sees Kvothe as Auri does and it's interesting to see the why behind how she behaves.

4/5 Stars. 

Committed - Elizabeth Gilbert

I must be the one person who has not read Eat, Pray, Love, but I follow Elizabeth Gilbert on social media and I have found her thoughtful and compassionate. And I really felt her pain when her partner Rayya passed away last year. So when I received Committed I was first confused about the topic of the book being her hesitancy to marry her second husband and her doubts about the institution of marriage.

I have to say, knowing that the marriage she was so hopeful for does not work out was a bit of a downer but Gilbert has such a great narrative voice that I couldn't help but get caught up in her story. And also, the background she provides about marriage and the ways it has evolved throughout history and cultures was very fascinating.

Each marriage is unique and Gilbert readily admits she is no expert. This is essentially a self reflection on whether she should enter an institution she does not trust and has believed herself to be bad at. The level of honesty with which she approaches her analysis shows a lot of maturity that I honestly don't think I could muster - or at least I would not be brave enough to put it out into the world.

I know a lot of people just don't relate to Liz Gilbert. But a memoir can't speak to everyone and she's not trying to be something she's not, which is painfully obvious in this book. While this wasn't my favorite book of 2019, I appreciate Gilbert's writing style and her honesty.

3/5 Stars.

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster - Alex Higginbotham

I was five years old when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred so let's just say that I didn't really follow the story at all. But throughout my childhood I was aware of the accident. Perhaps through follow up stories of the remaining radiation or the ghost town of Pripyat. In any case, I thought I knew what happened there. Nuclear reactor meltdown, radiation fall out. Some kind of heroics of fireman. End story.

I actually love finding out I'm insufficiently informed - woefully ignorant. It's such a joy to learn new things. But Midnight in Chernobyl tore my understanding down and showed that the reality of the disaster was so much worse than I could have imagined.

Do I now understand nuclear physics? Not even a little but. But this book does an excellent job of walking the reader through some painfully complex science so that when the explosion finally occurs around chapter 7, you are well and painfully aware of just how easily this accident happened and you're just as surprised it didn't happen earlier and all over the Soviet Union.

That this accident could only have happened how it happened, when it happened, and how it was responded to in the Soviet Union cannot be understated. From the attempts to protect reputation, to oversell quotas and timelines, to the blind adherence to authority over safety, this disaster snowballed out of control and then only through the essential sacrifice of bodies was it contained.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/moving_to_Chernobyl

The true extent of the loss and fall out will never be known (mostly because the government didn't want to have to tell anyone), but the human toll is overwhelming and obvious from the pages of this book. Every chapter brought some knew horror of response and loss. At times I just needed to take a break and walk away from the staggering details. I definitely want to read this again as I think there is just more to be gleaned from a second reading.

5/5 Stars.

#IMomSoHard - Kristin Hensley & Jen Smedley

I first learned of Kristin and Jen in my heady days of Facebook (I'm currently in recovery - two years clean). I ran across one of their, I Mom So Hard videos shortly after the birth of my second child and laughed in the kind of sleep deprived delirium only a new baby can give you.

Last year me and my two Tennessee besties got to see these moms live and it was also a hilarious night, despite the fact I had to leave a little early to get back to relieve my teenage babysitter on a weeknight when my husband was out of town for work travel (I can attest that I really really needed that night out).

I was very tickled when my friend's husband lucked into a copy of this book through a work connection and decided to snag it for my (and your) enjoyment. I read it on the plane to and from California on a work trip. I laughed out loud. I nodded along in agreement. And mostly, I thanked heaven for honest women who aren't afraid to tell it like it is - with a side of humor (women ARE funny, just accept it).

From their devotion to each other, to their no topics barred approach to motherhood, Kristin and Jen are relate-able and reliable. So here's to all the moms out there momming so hard. I see you and I appreciate you. And you should read this book because you deserve a laugh and a moment to yourself (even if it is in the pantry alone where your kids can't find you).

3.75/5 Stars. 

If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin

There's a terrifying sense of stillness woven into the pages of If Beale Street Could Talk. There is no momentum even as the characters change in ways that defy the inertia of the overall plot. You want, you beg, the story to move forward. To find out if Tish is able to save Fonny from a script that every person in the story seems to have already read.

You see, nineteen year old Tish is trying desperately to save her fiance Fonny from the legal system. A system that allowed, well encouraged, a policeman to frame and arrest Fonny for a brutal rape of a woman he'd never met. Fonny's real crime was standing up to this policeman on another day, at another time, in a way that stripped the policeman of his power. And when it comes down to it, the policeman remains intent on righting this "wrong" and showing Fonny who really has the power.

So a newly pregnant Tish must grapple with the hefty price, both emotionally and in cash money, of trying to free Fonny from the system. The gross injustice of his plight makes it no cheaper. The chance for a "speedy trial" ingrained in our constitution is not enough. The efforts of Tish's entire family are not enough. The fact that Tish's mother is willing to travel to Puerto Rico to visit the victim (a victim in many ways - including being used as a pawn against Fonny) isn't enough.

The ripple of injustice courses up and down the generations of both Tish and Fonny's families as we wait and wait and wait for anything to change the circumstances. We wait as Fonny waits, as time warps and seems to lose it's meaning.

Because the lack of pacing in the book, the utter stagnation, is the thing that makes this a very uncomfortable read but also is the essence of the book itself.

4/5 Stars.

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators - Ronan Farrow

If I didn't know Ronan Farrow was a real person I would swear this was a work of brilliant fiction. That Catch and Kill involves real people and the lengths to which slime balls go to protect their reputation and their brotherhood of slime balls is shocking, disheartening, maddening, and disgusting.

Apparently the fact that Harvey Weinstein was a misogynistic, predatory a-hole was a well known "secret" in Hollywood (that's code for if someone makes enough money they can really get away with anything). Typically he would walk over women, assault women, be pushy with women, and anyone who got sideways of his endeavors found themselves without movie scripts, production offers, etc. But because he held the purse strings, employed people, promoted people, created stars, people looked the other way. People who couldn't were shown the exit door and asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This isn't right. It's certainly not justice.

So when Ronan started following a lead that became a story that became an avalanche, an entire system was put into motion to try to stop the reporting. Men whose conscience balked under the weight of similar allegations, organizations worried about their own internal practices around predators. This led to international security firms following Ronan to out his sources (sorry Jonathan that you were too boring to follow, it's adorable).

I deeply appreciated the vulnerability and empathy Ronan showed throughout and that he didn't shy away how the reporting affected him as a person. He focused on sources and facts to remain objective but also let himself feel the way he felt when the facts and evidence laid bare the truth. Our country is better for this kind of reporting, and for Harvey Weinstein and the men (and women) who believed their power, prestige, and money would allow them to get away with this heinous behavior to be held accountable.

Also, I would read any book that has a cameo by Pundit. 

5/5 Stars.