book reviews

Books I’ve Read in 2022

December 5, 2022 by Jim Peacock 2 Comments

Each December I share the books that I’ve read in the past 12 months. Look for my interview with Scott Woodard, David Lee, and Amy Pierce-Danders in mid-December where we explore our favorite books and tips on how you can find time to read more.

Even my granddaughter is reading my FieldGuide for Career Practitioners! She loves to read…or technically to be read to, but you got to start somewhere 🙂

Below is a listing of the books and links to my short review of each.

Books that made me think

Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brene Brown

The Earned Life. Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment By Marshall Goldsmith

Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive By Jonathan Fields

Do Wh at You Love and Other Lies About Success and Happiness By Miya Tokumitsu

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives our Success By Adam Grant

Books I read for pleasure

The Pacific Crest Trail: A Visual Compendium. by Joshua M. Powell.

Three Weeks With My Brother. By Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks

The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon

Crossing Paths: A Pacific Crest Trailside Reader Edited by Rees Hughes and Howard Shapiro. Illustrations by Amy Uyeki (*note: I am actually in a few stories in this book)

Where the Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens

And all these books by Paul Doiron! I didn’t realize I read this many of his this year. I’ve got another one on my shelf as I write this blog. He is a Maine author whose main character is a game warden who ends up in all kinds of predicaments in locations throughout the state…most of which are places I have been.

Massacre Pond
The Bone Orchard
The Bear Trap
The Precipice
The Widowmaker
Knife Creek
Rabid
Stay Hidden
Almost Midnight
One Last Lie

Books I read for historical/biographical

Mountains to Mountains by Tracy Kidder

A Chain of Thunder By Jeff Shaara

The Last Green Valley by Mark T. Sullivan

Seven Summits by Dick Bass & Frank Wells with Rick Ridgeway

This is me after reading to my granddaughter.

Good Night Maine by Adam Gamble and Suwin Chan
You’re My Little Snuggle Bear by Nicola Edwards
Bedtime Bear by Morgan Huff

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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My Books in 2021

December 13, 2021 by Jim Peacock Leave a Comment

Each December I share the books I have read in the past year and also interview other bibliophiles as a way to share even more books. Check out the interview for 2021 here.

Besides all the books that I’ve read, I am still excited that my second book came out this year too! The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand is about my near death experience while traveling in New Zealand in 1983-84.

Here are the books that I’ve read this past year. First I list the books I read to be a better career coach, next historical & nonfiction books, and then my recreational reading. Each of the books will link to a short summary of the book. I do this so when someone asks about one of these books, I can send them the link to get the title and author correct. I also do it to remind myself of which books I’ve read. More than once, I bought a book only to find that I had read it already. Now I can check my list 🙂

Books to make me a better coach

Help Wanted: An A to Z Guide to Cope with the Ups and Downs of the Job Search by Karen Litzinger

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

Switchers by Dawn Graham

Designing Your Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work. By Burnett, B., & Evans,D.

StoryTraining: Selecting and Shaping Stories That Connect, by Hadiya Nurriddin.

Your Stories Don’t Define You. How You Tell Them Will. By Sarah Elkins

Historical & Nonfiction

To Wake The Giant by Jeff Shaara

Elephantoms: Tracking the Elephan t by Lyall Watson

Journey on the Crest: Walking 2600 Miles from Mexico to Canada by Cindy Ross

Greenlights By Matthew McConaughey

Mountain Madness: Scott Fischer, Mount Everest & a Life Lived on High. By Robert Birkby

Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner

Books to entertain me and make me more interesting…I hope.

The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron

Bad Little Fall’s by Paul Doiron (and soon his book Trespasser)

Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre

If you are still reading this and want to see my book reviews from 2020, you can check them out here.

I also enjoy talking with other bibliophiles, so I recently interviewed three others in this interview on their favorite books in 2021. Watch/Listen to the interview.

Book Reviews in 2019

December 9, 2019 by Jim Peacock 4 Comments

Book Reviews from my bookshelf

I write short book reviews whenever I finish a book and post them on my website. Thanks to a couple of other colleagues who are voracious readers, I am now also posting in Good Reads occasionally. Each December I like to reflect back on the books I’ve read in 2019 and seek recommendations from you.

For me, writing down my book reviews makes it (a) easier to remember as a visual & kinesthetic learner and (b) easier to share recommendations with others when the time is right.

Below I have three categories of book reviews.

Marketing / Business
Career
Personal …just for fun

I have also found a few quotes regarding books that I like.

Note: I’ve given 1 or 2 short sentences for each book but you can read the entire book reviews by clicking on the hyperlinks.

I Never Met a Book I Didn’t Like. Jim Peacock (this is almost true…I have had maybe 2 or 3 books I actually did not finish in my lifetime…one was Moby Dick 🙂

MARKETING / BUSINESS BOOK REVIEWS

I like to learn from others in the PR and marketing and business world. Being a Solopreneur can be difficult but having experts around me makes my job easier. I always pick up tidbits from each of them.

PR Works! How to Create, Implement and Leverage a Public Relations Program for your Small Business. By Nancy Marshall, the PR Maven. If you are a small business person and want to get yourself onto the right direction for growing your business, then you need to read this book.

It’s Your Ship By Captain D. Michael Abrashoff. Read this in December 2019 so it missed that newsletter. I have been doing some research into “stay interviews” which are done while employees are still working at your company versus “exit interviews” when you ask them “What went wrong? What could we do better?” This book is what was recommended by someone in a Facebook recruiter group I am in as one of the first books that talked about putting employees first and asking them what they think.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

CAREER BOOK REVIEWS

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. By Robin Diangelo. I included this book here because it has really challenged me. Most of our American culture is run by whites which means that polices, laws, and interpretation of them is white focused. So challenge yourself and read this book.

Find Your Why By Simon Sinek. A Practical Guide For Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team. With David Mead and Peter Docker This book had been recommended to me by a number of people and is all about how you figure out your WHY

The ONE Thing By Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. This book was recommended to me by my business coach (Thanks Mandy). Yep, it is a great book at focusing your efforts and energy to ONE thing that is the most important thing to you now.

Brain-Based Career Development Theory by Imants Jaunarajs, Jodi Pavol, and Erin Morgenstern. Technically I read this book in December 2019 but it missed the Book Reviews newsletter so I’m sharing it here. Here is the 1st of 6 big takeaways from the workshop and their monograph.

The brain can only handle 4 pieces of information in the prefontal cortex, two is best. This means we need to work hard to focus on 1 major task at a time. Most of us have many more thoughts going on at once.

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” – Fran Lebowitz

PERSONAL..Just For Fun BOOK REVIEWS

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery. I just finished reading Grandma Gatewood’s Walk about a 67 year old grandmother who was the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. I love the outdoors and have walked 1800+ miles of the Pacific Crest Trail and pieces of the AT but was blown away and inspired at the same time with this woman who walked the AT at 67 years old, then again as a thru-hike, AND again in sections

A Widow for One Year. By John Irving. This is my second John Irving book in 2019…there was a sale at a bookstore. The author is an edgy guy and not afraid to write about sex 🙂 Not dirty sex or porn, just the struggles of sex and the complications of it at times. I enjoyed both books.

Becoming By Michelle Obama. From the South Side of Chicago to the Whitehouse. What an amazing journey. What I loved about this book was the insight into how Michelle Obama thinks and her passions.

Zen on The Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage By Christopher Ives. Thanks to Howard, my backpacking buddy, who sent me this book. This is often how I feel when backpacking…on a zen hike. He captures so many moments when I am walking and seeming lost in thought – mindful – clear – simple – slowed down

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
Oh yeah, I almost forgot…I published my book this spring too. A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move
You can can check out what others think of my book on the above link. I’m quite proud of it, but I could be biased.

There are more books that I read in 2019 and you can see them all by going to my website. And if you’d like to make a recommendation for me in any of my categories…please do, I’m always looking for the next great read.

Check out my interview with four other book reading friends.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association.

Sign up here to receive my TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON. You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more.