As you may have noticed, February hasn’t been a particularly effective month around the blog (or anywhere else in my life). There are a number of reasons for this, but really it all comes down to major upheavals going on in my life. So…I’ll share my books monthly. I might set up del.icio.us to post here while I’m gone. You’re welcome to subscribe to my FriendFeed to follow my activity around the web (because I seem to be active everywhere but this website). When I’m ready, when i have a direction for this blog to resume, I’ll start posting here again.

I spent most of the month suffering from one ailment or another. The joys of working with children in winter. It was great for slogging through my reading list, though.

• Little Green Book of Getting Your Way- I took a few notes out of it, but the layout made it very hard to stare at the book for any length of time.
• The Effective Executive- Mostly, I had already read this information. I found it far more useful to just read the introduction and last chapter.
• On Writing Well- I thought I had read this last year, but I definitely hadn’t. The chapters on humor and voice (my two weakest points) alone made the entire book worth it!
• The Art of Project Management- Had I read it years ago, it would have been a great resource, but as this point it was just an enjoyable read.
• Bit Literacy- It’s a great book for people new to technology, but it was familiar (and a bit out of date) for me.
• Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got- This book also felt out of touch with the Web 2.0 world. It’s far easier and more entertaining to just subscribe to Teaching Sells.
• A Whole New Mind- An interesting look at how those who can work in the right side of their brain will actually lead the way into the future.
• Math Doesn’t Suck- This book is a must-have for every girl you know! It covers math tips for factors, fractions, decimals, percents, ratios, and simple algebra, all the time reminding girls why it’s important to never let anyone convince them to act dumb.
• The Design of Everyday Things- An interesting look at the psychology and usability of design. Some of the things he talks about should seem obvious, but it’s interesting how what’s obvious goes over well with the people who will actually use something, but not with those assigning awards for design.

I’ve given up on reading the Personal MBA books because most of them felt either too familiar or too outdated. We’ll see what books I come up with next!

Posted by Rebecca as book love at 9:36 AM EST

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I think I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to tell a story in words. I’m not sure it’s been an entirely successful venture, but I keep trying.

It’s kind of funny, too. I love reading books. There’s a thrill in letting the words play in your mind to create a picture, a movie of the book.

But I’ve realized as I’ve read more and more manga (Japanese graphic novels) over the past couple of years that I enjoy the effect of words and pictures together. I still enjoy exercising my imagination with a textual book, but I’m just as likely to reach for a manga as a novel. My feed aggregator is slowly filling with more and more webcomics for this same reason. And I reach for the manga, the webcomics, and the novels that are able to fully utilize their media to draw me in to a sustained story.
As a child, I studied ballet. I can remember rehearsals as a young adult where the artistic director and the choreographer continually nagged us to tell the story. The story of the ballet, the story of the individual dance we were doing. If our movements weren’t contributing to building the story, then we weren’t doing it correctly. And this applied to dances that weren’t part of a story ballet, too. Our recital pieces were mini-stories, danced by each class.

This comes back to me every time I watch figure skating competitions. I’ve noticed the more successful skaters find the story in their music and bring it out in their choreography. Amazingly, these tend to be the skaters who turn professional and take over my weekend afternoons as their exhibitions are run over and over again on the television.

Even my favorite musicians are the ones who can consistently provide a story in their work. In their lyrics. In the music if there are no lyrics. I love the story. My favorite band at the moment is my favorite band, simply because their lyricist is a fantastic storyteller.

Thinking about it, I’ve come to realize that the medium has little to do with a good story. The story is the story on its own merit, and the medium is the vehicle delivering the story. I don’t know if that will help me at all, but someone else might find it interesting.

Posted by Rebecca as storytelling at 8:25 AM EST

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