As a company, Credo Reference is focused on learning and libraries, so it should come as no surprise that its employees are avid readers. Many of us commute to work by train, which nicely affords us some time in the mornings and evenings to partake of a book – in some form. As you’ll see from below, we have very varied, even eclectic, tastes in literature. What follows is a roundup of what Credo employees are, or have recently, read.
Jim Slattery is reading Hellions: Pop Culture’s Rebel Women by Maria Raha. He says that: “It’s an easy-to-read take on recent pop culture and examines the roles of some of the most influential women such as Janice Joplin and Jane Fonda. Pretty good so far but I doubt this book is for serious historians of American culture, seems kind of light.”
Heather Blaine: “I’m reading two books concurrently, not unusual in this office I suspect. The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine (pen name of Ruth Rendell) – it’s a British-political-scandal / psychological thriller – very dry, very thoughtful, very good. The other book is New Moon, book two of the Twilight series. I started this in solidarity with my sister, an 8th grade language arts teacher who wanted to read the book her students are obsessed with. That’s why I started book one, Twilight, now I’m reading on because I can’t seem to stop! Oh, and the occasional essay from Secret Ingredients, a book of food-related essays from The New Yorker. All of this I read on my Kindle, making it very easy to queue up my next book!”
John Dove: “I’m reading Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Charles Dickens. I figured that since I wrote a paper about the benefits of reference publishers implementing a small piece of the semantic web and used, as an example, an exploration of Charles Dicken’s life in and around Doughty Street, that I’d read Ackroyd’s biography and see what he found out about Dicken’s during the years he lived there.”
Anne Kail is reading The Conqueror by Jan Kjaerstad (in translation from the Norwegian!)
Pete Ciufetti: “I’m reading The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. It’s fascinating to watch his development as a young scientist and to see how he analyzes the flora, fauna and geography. You can see that he hasn’t figured out the origin of species yet and reading along is like a favorite movie that you know the ending to. Its also amazing that he doesn’t get killed. He’s in almost constant danger from hostile Indians. Wild savages or natural disasters. There’s a reasonable chance that he wouldn’t have lived to tell his story.”
Jill Rosa is simultaneously reading, kindling and listening to these books:
Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, et al. (print) Learning to lead with emotional intelligence.
Be the Pack Leader by Cesar Millan, et al. (audiobook) Learning to lead with calm, assertive energy. It is not at all surprising that Cesar quotes Danial Goleman’s bestseller, Emotional Intelligence when talking about the characteristics required to be an effective pack leader to your dog.
Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values by Fred Kofman. (kindle edition). This is a book about effective human interactions and putting what should be common sense into common practice. It also explores personal and corporate responsibility. I’d bet that Fred Kofman has a well-behaved dog too.
Sara Ortins is reading This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. She says: “This book was a product of NPR’s program, This I Believe, which was kicked off in the 1950’s. Since then, essays have been collected from both famous and ordinary people. This book consists of some of the best essays received by producers. Reading this book has helped me examine my own “personal credo.”
As for me? I’ve recently finished The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, by Benjamin Wallace. I found it to be an interesting look at a world I knew nothing about – that of very highly-priced, often very old, wines. I also found it fascinating how willing these wine connoisseurs were to simply disregard the historical facts and likely provenance of these bottles that they were paying many, many thousands of dollars for. I’ve just started The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl, which looks to be an interesting mash-up of mystery story and actual little-known historical details.
What have you recently read?
