A few thoughts on books I will not cover in a full review.
The Illustrated Book of Sayings by Ella Frances Sanders (December 2019)
Longtime readers are surely groaning at the latest reference to Sanders, whose Lost In Translation has been the subject of several (hundred) thousand words on TOA. The Illustrated Book of Sayings is a related project, demonstrating the full range of language with its collection of various expressions from around the world. There are certain expressions that I wished were commonplace in English, and perhaps I am guilty as charged for borrowing the Polish saying "not my circus, not my monkeys" in the few weeks after completing this reading. The rewarding aspect of this work is the way it invited me to look at stale expressions, buzzwords, and clichés not as prompts for eye-rolling, but as opportunities for invention. There was, after all, someone in Tibet who first pointed out the phenomenon of giving green answers to blue questions. Why not follow the example and try to add my own colorful contribution to the world of expression? In the meantime, here is my review after my 2018 reading, which lists out a handful of the selections in this book.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (September 2019)
I think it was in a John O'Donohue book where I read that grief is the place where no one can find you, a place for which there is no map. In some ways this book is Didion's effort to chart the territory, but The Year of Magical Thinking is far from a universal guide. It is like Didion herself notes - grief is different for everyone, which means readers are unlikely to find themselves reflected back to them from these pages. The connection is subtler, like deja vu, seeing through Didion's eyes what I think has flashed past my own - the expression on a face weeks after a loss, the unstable way the grieving express themselves, the confusion after those unforgettable moments of forgetfulness. There is much more, I'm sure, but what matters will differ by reader; what I noted is here.
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier (January 2021)
I have to open by noting that I thought this was an effective book. The core of The Coaching Habit is a series of seven questions designed to open up productive workplace discussions, and for the most part I thought the framework could be helpful for any reader. If you are interested, I suppose you can check out my book notes. The challenge for me with this work is an unstated assumption - the tools are intended for a certain type of relationship. I often discover this reality within these types of books. The nature of the conversations these managerial books promise to their readers is the kind that happens naturally among colleagues with a strong working relationship. I'm undecided if the best remedy for a stiff, formal, or distant relationship is to absorb the techniques described in works such as The Coaching Habit. Wouldn't it be better to build the relationship instead?
