Welcome to issue #20 of Pondering Leadership: A Deliberate and Thoughtful, Yet Informal Look at Leading and Managing. A lot of people are taking some time this month to reflect on accomplishments. I hope ideas in my previous nineteen issues have helped you provide a positive and welcoming work place.
This week, I am giving you some book recommendations. My original thought was to keep my recommendations to leadership and management titles. But, since we are in the holiday giving season, I decided to include some of my favorite books from this year instead. Books make great gifts for others and ourselves. In a future issue, I will revisit leadership and management titles.
Many of these titles were published long before 2023, but I read them this year. Some of these books were big best sellers this year. Some of these titles are galleys I have had on my shelves for 15 years. Either way, I really enjoyed every single one of these books and recommend them all.
Lorene’s Favorite Reads 2023
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You by A’ja Wilson
Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
The Spectacular by Fiona Davis
Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa
Walt Disney by Neal Gabler
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Hoop Muses: An Insider’s Guide to Pop Culture and the (Women’s) Game by Seimone Augustus and Kate Fagan
Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding
Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses
Once Upon a December by Amy E. Reichert
Swimming with the Blowfish by Jim Sonefeld
Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries by Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne LaPierre
The Maya Angelou Biographies
Let me know what you think of my list! Have you read any of these books already? What are some of your favorite reads this year? Let me know in Discussion.
Thank you for reading issue #20 of Pondering Leadership. Thank you for reading and supporting my writing this year. Even leaders and managers need a break, so I will be back with a new issue on Thursday, January 4, 2024.
If you have been following along in chat, for the last few weeks, you have been going through your files. I hope that is going well. Respond to the chat with your progress. I will be back on January 1 with a new organizing and simplifying tip.
I hope you can take some time for yourself over the holiday season.
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Oh, boy - yet even more to add to my book stacks! I listen to a lot of books, but that is still considered reading! Recent reads are Barking to the Choir by Gregory Boyle (kinship and gang member rehabilitation); White Lies by A. J. Baime; The Deadly Rise of Antiscience by Peter J. Hotez (I'm still renewing/reading); Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans; The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes; The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (so good! about Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune - a person I was unaware of!); The Second by Carol Anderson; Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill; Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult