William Zinsser is famous for being an excellent coach for writers. He has mastered the art of communicating through words. He has followed an alternative career path that has brought him success and fulfillment. He shares his insights in this memoir of his life while coaching the reader how to write about her/his own life. Zinsser’s style is humble and consistently strikes the right tone for sharing the memory. That skill – sharing memories –…
Do conversations ever catch you off-guard? Do you ever feel unprepared for conversations that pop up spontaneously yet seem to matter a lot and to affect dramatically the course of our lives? These situations often occur in families and in businesses, and this book attempts to prepare us better for handling those weighty situations. This book came recommended to me as a part of a book club at my workplace. I can see why. It…
Successfully resolving conflict is one of the most important tasks in management and leadership. Schwarz, a Harvard-educated organizational psychologist, teaches us how to do just this in this well-received book. Its success can be demonstrated by the fact that it now resides in its third edition. (This review only applies to the second edition.) Schwarz tells us how to be not just a facilitator but a skilled facilitator of discussion within organization. He consults with…
How does marketing work in an era where things go viral on the Internet and social media dominates our national discourse? Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, has an understanding of how it can work and a philosophy of how you can use it to promote your work. Using terms like “social currency” and established concepts like social status, he describes how online marketing can work in a way that is…
Have you ever not had the right words to approach a situation at work? This work, from the Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs, explains open-ended ways to approach conversations at work. It does so in a way such that the inquirer acknowledges her/his ignorance with a situation. This essentially post-industrial and postmodern approach allows teams of knowledge workers to appreciate everyone’s wisdom as they come to a consensus. This book is divided into two parts:…
Stephen King is one of the most best-selling writers of all-time. In this book, which I read in a tenth-anniversary edition, King shares his insights into the process and lifestyle of writing. Obviously, these insights are of interest to writers who seek to improve their craft. Although I still prefer Strunk and White’s classic more than King’s, I am quite grateful to have spent the time to read this classic. Strunk and White harp on…
My research work is moving from writing code to explaining the software that I’ve written. In general, I enjoy learning about language, and I picked up this book to extend my knowledge as well as to refresh myself on good practices for scientific writing. Scientific writing is often dry and difficult to understand – but as Greene points out, it doesn’t have to be. By following good writing practices (in the tradition of the famed…
Thompson has an interesting professional biography. He earned a PhD in rhetoric, taught at a community college, decided he didn’t like academe, and went into police work. I have never met anyone who has combined police work with rhetoric, but Thompson seems to have been successful at this task. His main content consists of teaching about rhetoric – or less pretentiously, verbal communication. However, he entertains by filling in with stories about police work, family…
Those who follow me might notice a trend. I am reading a series of books on freelance writing and on writing and communication in general. This book, part of a series by Writer’s Digest, talks about how the author continues to pursue a career in freelance writing. Petit talks about the art of the query (i.e., pitching an idea), how to freelance both as a full-timer and as a part-timer, and what to expect from…
How do writers put bread on the table and figure out places to publish their works? This reference resource, republished every year, is a big part of the how. Perusing its listings will put the writer in better shape for publishing her/his works. The first section of this work (about 900 pages long!) is about the business of writing – how to pitch pieces as a freelance writer and how to manage a business in…