Dennis Deery

Prairie Silence: A Memoir by Melanie Hoffert My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really loved this book! Author Melanie Hoffert grew up in a small town in North Dakota. She realized at an early age that she was gay, but kept this fact hidden from her family and community for many years. Like so many rural kids, once she grew up she left her community for the big city, in this case the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Letters to a Young Madman: A Memoir by Paul Gruchow My rating: 5 of 5 stars Paul Gruchow is one of my all-time favorite authors. I had the chance to meet him a couple of times, and in particular recall one incredibly stormy evening listening to him read and speak at UW-Stout here in Menomonie. He had such an incredible gift for language, and for seeing the natural world. I first experienced his work in The Necessity of Empty Places, which I read, appropriately enough on a wonderful vacation to Glacier and Grand Teton National Parks.

The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live–and How You Can Change Them by Richard J. Davidson My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is absolutely fascinating. Author Davidson is the founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at UW-Madison. He’s gotten a lot of attention with his work doing brain scans on Tibetan monks while they meditate.

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is a good introduction to applying design thinking principles to business. While it’s focused mainly on business growth, I think it can easily be applied to any facet of business. Design thinking entails a set of skills different from what most business people use on a daily basis. The authors lay out an easy-to-follow set of steps that can be applied to any business problem.

Flying Leap: A Novel in Perspective by Ralf Oliver My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book. It’s of the genre “lost person meets guru and gets life lessons.” But it’s a neat twist that the guru is a pigeon. Most of the lessons discussed fit pretty well with Buddhist teachings. Books like this always help me to step back from the craziness of day-to-day life and examine what I’m doing.

by Barry Moltz and Becky McCray (Full disclosure: Becky is one of the organizers of #140conf Small Town, where I’ve spoken the last two years. She was kind enough to provide me with a review copy of her book.) This book, subtitled “How Big Brands and Small Business Can Prosper in a Connected Economy”, is a great look at the unique attributes that can make small town and rural businesses successful.

So it turns out it’s a little harder to give away money than you might think. The proceeds for the book Age of Conversation 3 (with an essay by yours truly) were originally to go to the Make a Wish Foundation. They, however, required all publicity linked to the donation to use the same words, etc. Kind of hard to do when there are almost 200 authors out there flogging the book.

Rick Liebling, one of my fellow authors in the Age of Conversation project, is publishing a series of interviews with AOC3 authors on his blog. He’s just posted mine at his blog. Thanks Rick!

I’m thrilled to finally announce that Age of Conversation 3, a book including an essay from yours truly, is now available for sale on Amazon. Click below to check it out! Amazon.com Widgets

“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their own song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their songs instead.

[ Click to buy from Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416534652/irishroseconsult) A couple of months ago we stopped in the town of Wexford on a Saturday when their book festival was being held. Author Colm Tóibín was doing a reading, but we were unable to stick around until he was up. I found a couple of his non-fiction books, Bad Blood and Sign of the Cross, purchased them and left them to be signed and mailed to us.

Management guru Tom Peters has a great list of his favorite books up on his blog. I’ve read a few of them, and am currently working on the wonderful The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I’ll have a write-up on that one when I finish it.

Click to buy from Amazon Sub-titled “The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions,” this is a great, fast read. It chronicles the story of the so-called MIT Blackjack Team, a group of whiz kids who, with funding from anonymous backers, spent several years working as a card-counting team at casinos around the country. Blackjack, it turns out, is one casino game that is statistically beatable.

Click to buy from Amazon Parker Palmer is an educator, speaker and researcher who has spent most of his adult life thinking about community. His latest work begins with a discussion of the necessity of individuals living lives of integrity, of being true to your inner self. He contends (and I agree) that there is a price to be paid for living a divided life, a life without integrity of purpose.

Click to buy from Amazon Keith Ferrazzi has been writing a column for Fast Company Magazine, sharing his networking secrets. A master networker who counts Bill Clinton, Jack Valenti and countless other powerful people as members of his network, has some good tidbits to share. I meet a lot of people in business who believe that networking is about finding people who can do things for you - finding sales targets.

Click to buy from Amazon Mr. Thomas recently came to Menomonie to speak at a presentation put on by the Red Cedar Peace Initiative. As a veteran of the Vietnam War who since converted to Buddhism, he offered a unique perspective. My next-door neighbors are organizers of the Menomonie peace group, and they hosted Mr. Thomas during his visit. I happened to be at the computer in my office, which overlooks the street, when Mr.

Click to buy from Amazon Malcolm Gladwell does it again. His first work, The Tipping Point, became a hot bestseller during the internet craze in the 1990s. His second book, Blink, discusses how people make rapid decisions, and the ramifications of those decisions. Contrary to what you might think, he makes the case that it’s sometimes possible to make better decisions by gathering and evaluating less data.