reading (Elizabeth I CEO)

I finished "Elizabeth I CEO" a while ago now, but I've been way too busy to stop and write about it. This book is intended for managers and other business leaders. It's the kind of thing that gets passed around among mid-level leaders (aka aspiring CEO's). The book is structured with bits of advice followed by an example of how Elizabeth lived this bit of advice. The advice overall, seems pretty good, sensible, and level headed. How Elizabeth is related to it sometimes feel on point and sometimes feels like a stretch.

The book was written so that individual pieces could be read (assigned). As such, reading it from cover to cover can feel repetitious in places. Still, for a book written for CEO wannabes, it's not bad.

22. Alan Axelrod "Elizabeth I CEO"

reading (Grain of Truth)

I finished Ross A. Laird's Grain of Truth last night. It didn't take long for me to realize I wasn't the right person for this book. The language is a prose overflowing with imagery, saturated with hues of emotion, soaring whimsically through the warm air of the stratosphere. Or, if you are someone like me: purple, pointless, and self-contradictory.

Of the eight chapters, "Deep Water" and "Shallows" felt the most real and meaningful to me. They both come from deep connections in the author's childhood and have an inherent emotional power. These feel like the origin of the book and the rest of the chapters are window dressing to a make a theme. For me the writing felt forced and stilted, only occasionally dropping the pretense and cutting through to the beauty that lies unadorned in the wood, the water, and the mountain.

But when he mentioned the "warble of the raven" that, that was worth reading the whole book.

23. Ross A. Laird "Grain of Truth"