Steve Brewer weblog: a neuroplastic mirror

Team of Rivals

I’m reading The Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Pulitzer Prise Winner). This amazing book provides a unique perspective on Lincoln’s rivals for the 1860 Republican Party Nomination for President. The lives of Lincoln and his rivals William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates are woven together masterfully through Goodwin’s use of private letters, news articles, and other historical artifacts. This book is full of dramatic moments, and finely crafted personalities that really brings history to life. I’m amazed at the humility and patience of Lincoln, and his wisdom into the hearts of others. After Lincoln was elected President he courageously invites these same rivals to join his cabinet.  These leaders strive to preserve a fragile Union of the United States. This book is a multiple biography and illuminating history of one of the most amazing periods of America’s journey to become the Land of the Free.

Groundswell

I’ve been reading Groundswell, a must-read book for marketers from Forrester Research analysts on social computing trends like blogs, wikis, social network sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  This book does a great job developing a framework for creating Web 2.0 strategies for any company.  The authors combine great real world stories with data driven insights on trends happening right now on the web. Way back in 2000 I read The Cluetrain Manifesto, which was a call to begin a new way of working and collaborating.  Groundswell clearly reveals that this new way of using technology is well underway, and businesses ignore it at their peril.

i just put down annie dillard’s 1974 book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I can’t believe I’ve never read this book before now.  It is an account of one year worth of meditations on seeing the world with fresh eyes. She is part naturalist, part philosopher, part priest.  This is a rare book, right up there with Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, or Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac.