Hi,
Time for the monthly recap of a few books I won't cover in a full reading review.
Echoes of Memory by John O'Donohue (April 2021)
This well-regarded 1994 collection was O'Donohue's first published work, a short collection of poetry (though not as short as my notes). Echoes of Memory didn't move me in the same way as some of his later works, but I encourage anyone who has enjoyed his other writing to give it a try. The poem I liked best was the first, "Nowhere".
Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith (February 2021)
This was a rare reading experience for me - despite being lukewarm about the essays throughout much of the book, I find myself looking forward to reading her other collections. The fundamental challenge for me in certain portions of Changing My Mind was determining why she wrote about a given topic, and as far as I recall nothing came along in these pieces to change my initial impression. I am, of course, likely the source of my own discontent, perhaps tripping over one of Smith's insights - writers expect a reader to either add to the work like a producer, or to step aside and let the work speak the final word; it may be that, at times, Changing My Mind simply went over my head. I'm hoping that her more recent work narrows down to the two types of essays I enjoyed most in this collection - the first being an important topic benefiting from her careful observations, and the second a personal essay that gives us a closer look at her unmatched mind, one which I'm sure her loyal readers hope will never change.
Ring of Fire by Simon Hughes (January 2021)
Hughes collects ten perspectives of various figures associated with Liverpool Football Club - including players, managers, and executives - to tell the story of its dramatic rise and fall in the 2000s. Each chapter is centered around a comprehensive interview with one of these subjects, resulting in a book that shows more sides of the story than I expected from this work. I don't recommend Ring of Fire to a reader with no interest in soccer, though I think it holds plenty of fascinating insights about leadership and organizational dynamics that may appeal to the general audience. The most intriguing concept that I pulled from my book notes links stability within a team to its eventual success. According to one of Hughes's subjects, the right amount of such stability for a soccer team is around three years, with allowances for one or two major additions each season. I believe this understanding can be extended to teams in all fields, with personal experience suggesting that in my line of work the right length of time is somewhere between six and nine months. I also liked Xabi Alonso's point that a midfielder who tackles too often implies that he is being caught out of position. It reminds me of how someone can only be lauded up to a point for dealing with constant crises and emergencies - eventually, the focus must turn to why so many urgent interruptions are happening in the first place.
