Living in More Than One World

Today’s post is an interview with Deborah Kalb, who produces the terrific Book Q&As website, in which she conducts brief but incisive interviews with a wide variety of authors. A short sample of some of the most recent interviewees: novelists Susan Coll and Tracy Chevalier; nonfiction authors A.J. Jacobs and Naomi Schaefer Riley; and poet Peter Fortunato, whom I had not heard of previously and found particularly interesting. (I was really honored to be interviewed last December.) In addition, Deborah is a freelance writer and editor, who spent two decades working as a journalist in Washington, D.C.  She is the co-author, with her father, Marvin Kalb, of Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama.

Deborah Kalb; photo by Aaron Levitt

How do you decide which authors to include in Book Q&As, and how do you approach them?

It depends. Sometimes it’s an author I especially admire and I’ve already read all their books. (One of the most exciting things about working on the blog is that I get to talk/correspond with many of my favorite authors!) Sometimes it’s based on a recommendation. Sometimes I read a review of a book and think that I should get in touch with that author.

I usually find an e-mail address for the author—often on their website—and write to him/her. I’ve been pleased and amazed by how many of the authors write back and say they’d like to do an interview, and I’m grateful for their willingness to spend the time answering questions!

What is the thought process behind forming the questions you ask each author?

As I learn more about the author and his/her work, I come up with a series of questions to ask. If the author has a new book out, I usually focus most of the questions on that book. Other times, it’s a series of questions based on the author’s work as a whole. I try to keep in mind that some readers will know a great deal about the author while others will be coming upon him/her for the first time as they look at the Q&A.

Are you working on a new book and are you still actively promoting Haunting Legacy?

Yes, I’m trying to write a children’s book, which is a big departure! And yes, I still update the Haunting Legacy website and Facebook page almost every day. People still are interested in Haunting Legacy, the book itself and the idea of a father-daughter writing team!

Last week, I wrote for the second time on 50 Philosophy Classics, the new book by Tom Butler-Bowdon. One of Tom’s featured books is 1843’s Fear and Trembling, by the Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The 200th anniversary of Kierkegaard’s birth was celebrated on May 5th, and there will be activities throughout the year in his native Copenhagen and elsewhere.

Much of my interest in Kierkegaard stems from Peter Drucker’s deeply personal 1949 Sewanee Review essay, “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard,” which was anthologized in his 1993 book The Ecological Vision. In the essay, Drucker describes Fear and Trembling as “my favorite among Kierkegaard’s books.” As I wrote in 2011, Joseph A. Maciariello and Karen E. Linkletter examined this essay eloquently in their book Drucker’s Lost Art of Management.

You can also find a commentary on the essay by Richard Brem on the Drucker Society of Austria website, followed by the text itself. A highly interesting typewritten manuscript on the Drucker Archives website contains the text of a lecture, “Søren Kierkegaard: Or, How is Human Existence Possible?” It was given by Drucker 70 years ago yesterday, on May 20, 1943, at Bennington College, where he was teaching at the time.

Most people will not travel to Copenhagen to celebrate, but there is considerable reading online, including Judith Thurman’s post on newyorker.com; a post on Free Exchange, the economics blog of The Economist, and an op/ed in The New York Times, “Kierkegaard at 200,” by Gordon Marino, professor of philosophy and director of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, in Minnesota. For the time being, Oxford Journals is providing free access to selected Kierkegaard-themed articles.

Perhaps reading this material will provide the spark to attend one of the upcoming events, or to visit Copenhagen to see where Kierkegaard lived his relatively short, but influential life.

As the New Year moves into its second week, many people are probably still considering how to act most effectively on their new goals and resolutions for 2013. This is a time-honored process, and even famous people and historical greats have done it, as evidenced by the recent post on Brain Pickings by Maria Popova, “Famous Resolution Lists: Jonathan Swift, Susan Sontag, Marilyn Monroe, Woody Guthrie.” Before the momentum slows, consider my own variation on this exercise, the Total Life List. I’m grateful to Marie Kaddell of LexisNexis, who has re-posted my guest blog post about this topic for the New Year, on the LexisNexis Government Info Pro blog. Marie has generously provided both writing and speaking opportunities to me during the past four years, as I noted last year in “Gratitude and Guest Posts.” I’m honored to once again be included in her terrific yearly publication 2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries: Pushing Boundaries; Mobility…Community…Accessibility.

I’m also grateful to Deborah Kalb, who interviewed me recently for her wonderful Book Q&As website. With her father Marvin Kalb, Deborah wrote the 2011 book Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama, which recently came out in paperback. In our Q&A, she asked thought-provoking questions that helped me to reorder my thinking about what I’ve written, and what I plan to write in the future. Deborah has interviewed many excellent fiction and nonfiction writers since her site started last year. The interviews are all brief and to-the-point, and will give you insights into books you are already familiar with, as well as introduce you to others you’ll want to add to your what-to-read list for the new year.

The holiday season marks the publication of various business-oriented best-of lists. I always enjoy reading these roundups, and also wrote about them in 2011 and 2010. Jack Covert and his colleagues at 800ceoread have picked The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni, as the business book of the year. Earlier, they released the “elite eight” of picks, subdivided into categories, with The Advantage picked in management. Other winners included Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You (personal development), which, along with Lencioni, also appears in the Top 10 Business Books of the Year, by Harvey Schachter, in Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Steve Coll’s Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power is on the 800ceoread list (general business), and is also the winner of this year’s Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

Todd Sattersten, Covert’s former colleague and co-author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, cautions that he read fewer books this year, so his list is called “My Favorite Business Books of 2012.” One of the titles is The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau, which also made the 800ceoread list for small business & entrepreneurship. Bloomberg BusinessWeek chose the Best Books of 2012, According to Business Leaders. Not all of these books are in the business category, but it is interesting to see what these leaders are reading, such as the choices of Jan Hatzius, chief economist of the Goldman Sachs Group (Nate Silver’s The Signal and The Noise); and Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary (Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined). The British publication Management Today runs Andy Haldane’s top business books of the year, from the executive director, financial stability of the Bank of England. His top pick is the 50th anniversary edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn (influential for his concept of the “paradigm shift”). And it is always a pleasure to read about the books of the year from The Economist. Economics and business is only one category of many; one of its titles is the ubiquitous Private Empire. The race for 2013 begins in less than one week.

When Peter Drucker began visiting Japan in the 1950s, I imagine he had to prepare and arrange his schedule by exchanging letters and possibly some expensive phone calls. In preparation for my recent Drucker-related (first) visit to Japan to speak at the Drucker Workshop 7th Annual Conference, I had the benefit of staying in no-cost touch ahead of time with the great people I’d be working with, whom I wrote about in my first post in this series. There were many details to be ironed out, unfolding over several months; mainly via email and Facebook. All were patient about answering my endless questions with targeted information and recommendations.
The same is true for two of my friends at the Drucker-Ito School in California, Jeremy Hunter and Emi Makino, both of whom have deep knowledge about and experience in Japan. Besides many emails, I discussed the upcoming trip in person with Jeremy last November and Emi this January.
Having strong connections with so many talented and generous people was a big reason my visit was so memorable. I finally got to meet in person William Reed, whom I’ve been corresponding with since he wrote a great post about my book in 2011. (He was born and raised in the United States, but has lived for years in Japan.) Will has developed a living in more than one world-type multi-pronged career built around writing, consulting, calligraphy and martial arts.
In the next installment of this series, I’ll write about some of the reading material (in print and online) before and during the visit that helped enrich my experience.

Many excellent business-related books were published in 2011; more than most people can either read (or write about) during the year. So we owe a debt of gratitude to the reviewers who help us make sense of what’s been published during that time. Matthew E. May, author of The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change, has a really useful post on Open Forum, Best Business Books of 2011.  It’s got links to his original reviews of the top books, including one that is on many best-of lists this year, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs. Matt’s reviews are concise, yet highly descriptive and informative.
Todd Sattersten weighs in with the 11 Best Business Books of 2011. His list includes three also charted by May: the Jobs biography, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and Practically Radical by William C. Taylor. Todd wrote, with Jack Covert of 800-CEO-READ, the 100 Best Business Books of All Time, recently released in paperback. They have become perhaps the best-known commentators on business books in recent years. The 800-CEO-READ blog also has a running list of candidates for best business book of the year, in such categories as General Business, Leadership, Management and others.
Another helpful guide is the expert advice on offer in Marketplace radio’s best-of list. They polled a variety of people for their top choices, with brief explanations. Examples include author-professor Clay Shirky’s choice of Michael Nielsen’s Reinventing Discovery and Liaquat Ahamed, author of the award-winning Lords of Finance, with Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life.
James Pressley’s article Lehman Trader Goes Mad, Geithner Saves Citi: Top Business Books is Bloomberg.com’s best-of roundup. It starts with 10 books on the financial crisis, five on general business and five on economics. Number one on the latter list is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman; I wrote about Kahneman and other leading psychologists in a recent post. 2012 will no doubt present us very soon with many candidates for next year’s best-of lists. I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous new year!

As the year winds down, some useful best-of-business-book posts have been published recently, particularly Todd Sattersten’s The Top 10 Business Books of 2010. I saw Todd do terrific presentations at the 2009 and 2010 BK authors marketing workshops, and last year he was the first person to review Living in More Than One World, when he was with 800ceoread. Todd and Jack Covert, the Founder and President of 800ceoread, are the co-authors of a great book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Todd’s new post also includes links to podcast interviews he did with some of the authors on his 10 best list, including Daniel Pink, Seth Godin, Chip Heath and William Poundstone.  Another author on the list, Steven Johnson, was interviewed recently on the 800ceoread blog. In 2008, I interviewed Daniel Pink and reviewed his book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need, for USA TODAY. In 2003, I reviewed Poundstone’s How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft’s Cult of the Puzzle; How the World’s Smartest Company Selects the Most Creative Thinkers, for USAT. Miami Herald columnist Richard Pachter has Pachter’s Picks: The best business books of 2010. It includes three that also made Sattersten’s list: Pink’s Drive, Godin’s Linchpin and Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s Switch. Bloomberg.com’s best-of article is James Pressley’s Paulson Plays Chicken, Rich Get Richer in Best Business Books. Also on his list is Poundstone’s Priceless and Michael Lewis’ The Big Short, and such titles as Crash of the Titans, by my former USAT colleague Greg Farrell, now of the Financial Times. Finally, McCombs Today, the blog of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, has The Best Business Books of 2010, including The Big Short and, in agreement with Pachter, The Great Reset by Richard Florida; and in common with Bloomberg, Fault Lines by Raghuram G. Rajan and Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager, by Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager, n+1 and Keith Gessen. We will soon start seeing how the best business books of 2011 will unfold. Happy New Year!

Garr Reynolds, on his consistently useful Presentation Zen blog, has a handy and helpful recent post, 10 Tips on how to think like a designer. The ideas and insights he presents have applicability to a wide audience, which was his intention. Whether you are designing a presentation or anything else that people will have to look at and understand, you’re likely to discover things that will help you consider your project in new ways. One of the most provocative tips is the first: embrace constraints. The inclination for most of us is to complain about what we weren’t given to do something, rather than to focus on how to make the best of the situation. Reynolds suggests cold realism instead: “Your problem is what it is. How can you solve it given the resources and time that you have?” Reaching into Zen – Reynolds is based in Japan – tip #3 is to adopt the beginner’s mind. That way you are open and receptive to fresh new ideas and concepts because you are not jaded and shackled by your own experience. In a related manner, he suggests we sharpen our awareness and curiosity of the wonders all around us, all the time. “Good designers are skilled at noticing and observing,” he writes. “They are able to see both the big picture and the details of the world around them.” A running theme through some of the tips is to remember that what you are designing is about the audience — however that is defined — not you. Try to be empathetic and see things from their point of view. I enjoyed Reynolds’ 2008 book presentationzen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. His next book, presentation zen Design: Basic design principles & techniques for the non-designer, will be published in November.

Guardian.co.uk continues to produce useful, thought-provoking content in easy-to-digest formats. The latest example I’ve discovered is How to Believe. So far, this series of blogs by expert commentators is mainly centered on philosophy, with some religion. Mark Vernon, a multi-talented author, journalist, teacher, broadcaster and former priest in the Church of England is doing a series of eight blogs on Plato; two so far with the next due tomorrow. His next book, Plato’s Podcasts: The Ancients’ Guide to Modern Living, will be published in the UK in October. He does a nice job of setting Plato in context in the two blogs so far, demonstrating his importance in the middle of the linked chain of philosophers between Socrates and Aristotle. In the August 3rd posting, Plato’s dialogues, part 1: Why Plato?, Vernon writes, “We live in an age of religious pluralism, secular innovation and ideological searching. Reading him encourages us to delve deep and refashion a way of life that can speak truth to our own times.” In the August 10th posting, Plato’s Dialogues, part 2: Who was Plato’s Socrates?, Vernon’s interpretations about how we can make uncertainty and the unknown work for us, as we navigate change in our lives, are inspirational. “It might be said that the genius of Plato’s Socrates,” Vernon writes, “was to embrace ordinary human uncertainty and doubt, and fashion it into a flourishing way of life.” This embrace of and desire to reach beyond the unknown can further our creativity, innovation, love and wisdom. The postings have drawn many passionate comments, showing that Vernon has hit a nerve, no matter what you think of his ideas. Kudos to guardian.co.uk for devoting so much thoughtful and impressive coverage to these important areas of life. And to follow more of Vernon’s work, see his own Philosophy and Life blog.

Although her posting ran nearly a month ago, check out Michelle Richmond’s I can’t bear to part with… on sfgate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle’s website. She explains that she is culling her bookshelves, but that some books not only couldn’t go, but “beg to be read again and again.” Some of the ten books on the list are new to me, such as The Palace of Dreams, by Ismail Kadare and The Death of a Beekeeper, by Lars Gustafsson. What initially drew me to her post was the inclusion of one of my all-time favorite books, Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges, as well as A Mathematician’s Apology, by G.H. Hardy. I discovered and read the latter in the past year, and possibly if I had read it in high school (which I theoretically could have, since it was published well before), I might have had a better attitude about studying math. Here is her description of Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair: “This perfectly paced novel should be required reading for aspiring writers: a book about narrative, the arbitrariness of fate, and the writer’s subject – wrapped up in a riveting love story.” The whole list is informative, with beautifully written thumbnail descriptions of her keeper books. I then discovered that this shouldn’t be a surprise, as she is a best-selling novelist of such books as No One You Know and The Year of Fog, which is being made into a film. For more, see her website and her own blog, sans serif. She ends her sfgate.com post with the sensible advice that if her readers are cleaning her own shelves, they can donate books to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. No matter where you live, your local library friends organization can serve the same function if you are doing similar book culling.