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Throughout our careers, we 21st-century Americans seem to be connecting, disconnecting and, with a bit of luck, reconnecting with our work/life needs and ambitions. So the theme of this year’s suggested recent books is connections. Happy reading.
Take This Book to Work: How to Ask for (and Get) Money, Fulfillment and Advancement
by Tory Johnson and Robyn Spizman
Wouldn’t it be great if we all knew how to ask for what we want and need at work? But we don’t, so Johnson and Spizman show us how. Topics range from career advancement (how to request face time with the boss) to etiquette (how to ask a colleague to stop IMing you). The language suggested for requests is sometimes a bit stilted, but the content is dead-on.
Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children and Restart Your Career Even If You Haven’t Had a Job in Years
by Monica Samuels and J.C. Conklin
This well-written tome is the top entry in the you-can’t-have-it-all (at once) category of business books for women. The authors, lawyer Samuels and journalist Conklin, emphasize that laying the proper groundwork can make successful reentry more than a fantasy.
The Art of Connecting
by Claire Raines and Lara Ewing
Envisioning a basis for communication is key to any working relationship, but this task only gets more complicated as the American workforce becomes more diverse. The authors lay out a nuanced paradigm of introspective, conversational techniques for building bridges to anyone. Case studies and exercises round out the discussion.
Monster Careers: Networking
by Jeff Taylor with Doug Hardy
Taylor and Hardy bring their trademark information-packed approach to the topic of networking, an activity that’s more art than science. For most of us, networking presents a series of obstacles (introversion, perceived lack of connections, etc.), and the authors succinctly show the reader how to knock them down, one by one.
Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage
by Pat Fallon and Fred Senn
The business of America is marketing, and these guys know how to make it creative, straight from their home office in Minneapolis, an off-off Madison Avenue location if ever there were one. The authors illustrate their ad agency’s creative process, and they’re not shy about taking victory laps. Check out the book’s Web site, which practices what Fallon and Senn preach.
Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company’s Future
by Patricia Seybold
Along with marketing, the design of products and services is one of the core functions of American business. Seybold says all firms should incorporate customers into every aspect of developing a new offering, and she tells readers stories of the few firms that actually do so successfully. Looking for a major career boost? Bring this paradigm home to your company.
What Color Is Your Parachute? for Teens
by Richard Nelson Bolles and Carol Christen
The best time to think about your life’s work is when it’s just beginning. That’s why the author of the all-time best-selling career book and his collaborator have adapted Parachute for students. This version includes advice on using school to explore careers, discovering what you love to do and turning that passion into a career.
Portfolio Life: The New Path to Work, Purpose and Passion After 50
by David Corbett with Richard Higgins
The authors say too many career arcs are just a working stiff’s sprint that ends only when he’s gone off a cliff and returned to the earth the hard way. Instead, your work and life should be a progression, based on collecting and perfecting skills that will enable you to winnow away grunt work in favor of what really floats your boat. Who can argue with that?
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children
by John Wood
“Perhaps, sir, you will someday come back with books.” Those words, spoken by a schoolteacher in Nepal to Wood, then a vacationing Microsoft manager, sparked the author’s retirement from the millionaire mill and launched his mission to spread literacy to Asian children deprived of it. If you’ve made a fortune from stock options -- or even if you haven’t -- this book could inspire you to change your life, too.
Odder Jobs: More Portraits of Unusual Occupations
by Nancy Rica Schiff
Schiff has again taken beautiful black-and-white photos of individuals doing some of the oddest jobs in America. From a Vegas-based minister who dresses as Elvis to a Colorado paleoscatologist (an expert on fossilized scat), the author-photographer gets up close and personal. A brief, insightful bit of text accompanies each portrait.
