We are excited to continue our Goodreads book groups into the month of March! Nothing like some good books to help us look forward to spring. Join us in our Librarian Professionals group, our Librarians Enjoying Books group, or both! Feel free to read along with us and add your thoughts to the discussions.
Goodreads describes this book as featuring “innovative and surprising ways to keep your personal diversity journey moving and the diversity commitment of your organization. Written to make this information bite-size and accessible, you’ll find quick answers to typical What should I do? questions, like: What if I say the wrong thing, what should I do?”
For our fiction group, Librarians Enjoying Books, we will be reading Love Overdue by by Pamela Morsi. It’s the story of a shy book-loving woman that takes a job at the library in a small town only to run into someone from her past!
If you’ve been reading along each month with our Goodreads book groups, we hope you have been enjoying the selections, and learning great things to help further your professional life! If you are just joining us, fantastic! Here are the books we are reading for the month of February:
This book addresses several different communication problems and offers solutions, in order to build more meaningful relationships. We will learn how to listen better and how to handle ourselves effectively during conflict!
Library Journal recently posted this article written by librarian and Vice President of the ACRL Steven Bell on why the book can be especially helpful to those in the library world. He discusses how the book is still relevant in today’s library leadership world, but also names additional articles and resources that have continued to build upon Collins’ book.
Bell names a main component that is necessary for achieving greatness – passion! Leaders need to be able to channel their passion for their work in a way that inspires others to follow them and leads their company in the right direction. Bell also gives some suggestions of how to lead successfully in the library world.
If you have some time over the weekend, and have already finished up our November book group selections, we present – for your reading enjoyment – our December books!
In December, our Monthly Topic is stress management, and this book can be a way for you to get a handle on that. And we all start thinking about New Year’s resolutions as we get closer, so this book can help you to focus some of your energy on thinking about happiness goals!
Gretchen Rubin spends a year thinking about happiness, and how to make her already pretty-good life better. This was a NYT best seller for two years, and if you read it when it first came out, you might want to give it a re-read with some new perspective. She followed this up with several other books on happiness, and strategies for making your life happier.
She and her sister also create a weekly podcast with tidbits of advice on happiness-building activities you can take on. After I listened to “Podcast 91: Delete a Soul-Sucking App” I deleted Twitter from my phone, because it was making me upset to read my feed – but I couldn’t stop myself from spending time following every distressing discussion. I have to say I was much happier afterward!
I have picked up several other useful tips on increasing happiness – a very worthy goal in my eyes – from the podcast, and from the Happier series of books from Gretchen. If you have not explored in this area, try out her first book (this one!), or follow her blog, or listen to the podcast. See if consciously thinking about happiness strategies can make you happier this month! Tell us all about your experiences!
December is a hectic month for everyone, so we want to be respectful of your time and give you a quick book. At 96 pages, this is the shortest of Murakami’s books translated into English from his native Japanese. (“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is also pretty short, but not much information on librarians!)
If you have not yet read any of his books, you have an interesting adventure ahead of you! If you have already delved into the somewhat surrealistic world he creates, you will find many of his typical images here: sheep, cats, jazz, whisky.
This is not a library you would aspire to for yourself, but sometimes it’s good to get out there and try some new ways of thinking. Holiday times can be a challenge for everyone, so breaking up your traditions (and traditions of holiday-induced stress!) with an interesting and odd little look into a new world might be just the thing to inspire you to enjoy your lives and your holiday traditions!
Have you read other Murakami books? They are nearly impossible to describe, but what was your favorite part? Were there books you particularly liked? If this is your first time in the Murakami world: welcome! There are adventures to be had here, and things to explore.
But November is quickly approaching! We are excited to announce our book choices for next month:
CMLE Librarian Professionals will be readingGood to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other’s Don’t by Jim Collins. Goodreads summarizes the premise of the book as: “But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?” We will discuss the ideas presented in the book and learn more about achieving success. You can read the author’s top 10 tips to improve your company in this article from Inc.com.
CMLE Librarians Enjoying Books will read Dewey: The Small-Town Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron. Dewey was abandoned in a library in Spencer, Iowa and eventually became the library’s cat. We are excited to read about his journey!
Watch this video featuring Dewey and friends:
Like last month, we’ll have limited copies available of each book to borrow, so let us know if you want to be put on the borrowing list.
We are looking forward to another month of reading!
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