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Book Reviews
Why Book Reviews?
You may be a little surprised to see
book reviews on a speaker’s website. Frederick Douglass, the great
orator and abolitionist said:
“A little learning may be a
dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity for any people”
This is a statement that is so
appropriate for speakers. Content is the life blood for those in the
speaking profession. The most fertile source of content is the written
word. My reading list tends to be eclectic. The (very) general theme is
Leadership or sometimes lack of it. Thus I find biographies, memoirs of
politicians, business leaders, historians, artists, humorists and speech
craft to be fertile ground.
I am motivated to read material on
all forms of leadership – business, moral, political, military,
artistic, motivational and inspirational leadership. Indeed any material
that can provide good life lessons, anecdotes and quotations is on my
list.
In a sense this is a recommended
reading list as I do not bother to write reviews on books that I find
uninteresting. I hope you enjoy.
Conor Cunneen
Ripples
of Hope
Josh
Gottheimer
Admission:
Had this book not been in a Barnes & Noble discount bin I probably would
not have purchased it. Had I not, I would have missed a tome that in the
words of those MasterCard gurus is ‘priceless. [more]
Lend Me
Your Ears: Great Speeches in History
Editor:
William Safire
The bottom line is: if you are serious about
speechwriting and speechmaking, this book should be on your shelf.
It is so difficult to do justice to a book about great
speeches. By definition, the content should be good - even great, which
is partly why this book is such a rich treasure. The other reason why
Lend Me Your Ears is such a useful resource is the commentary provided
by editor William Safire. [more]
Satisfaction: How Every Great Company Listens to
the Voice of the Customer
Chris Denove, James Power
In the foreword to this interesting book, J. D. Power III, the founder
of J. D. Power and Associates recalls two meetings where he presented to
Pontiac representatives. Meeting one took place in January 1980 when he
detailed the Japanese automakers emphasis on quality. He predicted that
the then GM market share of 48% would drop to 33% by the end of the
decade. Not too surprisingly, some of the Pontiac / GM representatives
did not take too kindly to the prediction. [more]
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation
Lynne Truss
You know the scene, You are sitting in splendid isolation amongst many
others in the train or plane. Your neighbor intermittently guffaws
intermittently, looks sheepishly at you, and says “Sorry, but this is
very funny.” It is quite likely, she is reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
[more]
10 Simple Secrets of the World’s Greatest Business
Communicators
Carmine Gallo
There’s nothing new in this book and NO, they are not secrets, BUT
plenty of good material and anecdotes which may help the budding, and
the experienced presenter become much, much better. Gallo has worked in
communications for much of his life and brings a rich litany of
anecdotes and personalities to illustrate his “secrets.” [more]
Broken Windows, Broken Business – How the Smallest Remedies Reap the
Biggest Rewards
Michael Levine
This book reinforces some solid business concepts which you probably
have read or heard about previously. The basic logic is that little
things count and is best summed up in an old rhyme or proverb. [more]
Greatness: Reagan, Churchill and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders
Steven F. Hayward
A very readable but short book, which is one of the reasons why it
cannot credibly deal with "The Making of Extraordinary Leaders." [more]
Sham
Steve Salerno
Billed as a book which shows how the self help movement made America
helpless, SHAM is indeed an interesting read although it lacks the
devastating exposes its publicity suggests. [more]
Marketing Playbook: The Manual for Growing
Organizations
John M. Fox
This is not a book which you read through over a period of hours. In
fact it is quite possible that you will never read the entire book, but
yet find it invaluable. The author provides 102 of the best marketing
plays “to get your sales team across the goal line.” [more]
The
Thirty First of March
Lyndon Johnson’s Final Days in Office
Horace
Busby
Querying
“Lyndon Johnson” on Amazon generates over 18,000 references. The man was
a dominant figure in US politics for over 20 years, which goes some way
to explaining why he has been written about so prolifically. [more]
A Life
in the 20th Century
Innocent Beginnings 1917-1950
Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger is one of the pre-eminent
American historians of the 20th century. He is a winner of
two Pulitzer Prizes, for The Age of Jackson (1946) and
A Thousand Days (1966), Schlesinger’s account of the Kennedy
administration for whom he was a special assistant. [more]
Blue
Ocean Strategy
W. Chan
Kim, Renée Mauborgne
This book could just as easily be titled Thinking
Outside the Box, but such a cliched title probably would not have
garnered as much interest as the actual title.
The authors believe – probably correctly – that
there is no permanently excellent company and suggest that the correct
unit of analysis in exploring the roots of high performance is Strategy
which is “the set of managerial actions and decisions involved in
making a major market-creating business offering.” Examples of these
strategic moves illustrated in the book include the U.S. auto industry,
the computer industry and the cinema industry. [more]
Call
to Conscience : The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This
is essential reading for anyone interested in speech craft.
This work
is available in book form, CD and also available for download. I have it
on my iPod. This is a true test to see if a download can wear out,
because I listen to some of it, literally every day.
Note,
some of the audio quality is not good. To fully appreciate King’s talent
and speech construction, you do need the book. The advantage of the
audio is that you can hear the real thing and appreciate this wonderful
orator’s speech pattern, intonation and delivery. [more]
Lincoln
at Gettysburg – The Words that Remade America
Garry Wills
This is one
scholarly work. It is also a work that takes slow careful reading. The
author devotes more than one page to each of the two hundred and seventy
two words in the famous Gettysburg address. [more]
Team of Rivals
The Political Genius of
Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin
The book’s premise is that
Abraham Lincoln was not just a great President but one who also had the
motivational ability to create a highly effective team comprised of many
of his rivals. These were men who had hoped to become President.
Instead, they took a subservient role to a President whom Goodwin writes
about in hagiographic terms. [more]
1776
David
McCullough
A Page Turner. My first reaction after reading David McCullough’s
very enjoyable 1776 is ‘How did the Americans win /
British lose this war?
This is an immensely readable book. It is not often
a history book is so compelling as to be a page turner, but that is what
McCullough has achieved. This is particularly laudatory when you know
the ultimate end of the story. The author’s motivation was to provide a
snapshot of the war. Be warned, this is what this book is, in that it
opens late in 1775 and finishes very abruptly at end of 1776.[more]
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