Nonfiction

Guest Post by Kathleen Murphey.

That the 2020 Presidential Election was close depressed me and made me search for higher education jobs in Canada, but then I read the Mother Jones article, “How Facebook Screwed Us All.” If Facebook and other social media platforms are enabling bad actors to undermine democracy across the globe, they could be forced to adhere to better regulation standards.

To learn more, I am reading Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee. McNamee outlines Facebook’s rise and its failure to imagine its persuasion architecture being used for nefarious purposes—even though evidence of bad actors using its platform keeps piling up from Brexit to the 2016 U.S. election to incidents in Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

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Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee. Penguin Books, February 2020.

Reviewer bio: Kathleen Murphey is an associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia.  She does both academic writing and creative writing (www.kathleenmurphey.com).

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Guest Post by Tiffany Mitchell.

I have always been a reader of philosophy, spirituality and self-improvement books. I really think it is important to have a space in your life to connect directly with yourself in order to make more inspired choices so that the rest of your life is constantly being fed with the best of you. This pandemic has lent the opportunity to do that but in a more deliberate way. It wasn’t just about reading to develop better communication skills or finding new ways to build confidence. It was about reading to stay grounded in faith. When uncertainty became the “norm,” faith became the remedy.  My reading choices mirrored that internal understanding.

When I read Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani, I was quickly reminded of the beliefs woven throughout religious and spiritual teachings. This book was the culmination of all those understandings that we know but somehow allow our circumstances to silence. Moorjani’s relocations of her near-death experience and the knowing that she developed made relying on higher power even more purposeful and necessary. It made our current pandemic feel like a shared manifestation of our internal fears and offers still an opportunity to shift and renew our beliefs and values. It is time that we transition into more connected individuals and a unified world. It was an understanding of the power of compassion, acceptance, and self-love and how that directly impacts everyone and everything around us. This is an opportunity to reevaluate beliefs and how they are affecting our lives. This book provokes you to do just that. One thing is for sure, we are changed forever. But how we change is our responsibility.

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Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani. Hay House, September 2014.

Reviewer bio: Tiffany Mitchell is a Certified Life coach and founder of DearlifeIgetit.com.

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Guest Post by Renée Cohen.

Throughout the quarantine, I took to rereading old favorites. Most notably, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft—two books on the craft of writing that I recommend, particularly to aspiring writers.

Oddly enough, I was never a huge fan of either author’s prior works of fiction. (Although, admittedly, I have enjoyed movies based on some of their oeuvres.) In 2015, I purchased Big Magic prior to boarding a long-haul flight. Some fluff to pass the time, I reasoned at the time. By pure luck, On Writing was given to me at a holiday party during a random gift exchange. [Read more…] about Magical and Practical Inspiration

Guest Post by Jennifer Brown Banks.

It goes without saying that effective leadership is not exactly a dinner table topic, a trending news item, or a subject matter that most of us consider on a daily basis. Yet, good leadership is firmly ingrained in many roles and rites of passage in our daily lives.

Consider this. Good leadership is needed to be an effective parent, a supervisor, a mentor, and even an American president. Which is why so many people have a definite opinion on Donald Trump—be it good or bad.

In the book, Leadersh!t by former CEO and leadership development coach, Rande Somma, many aspects and attributes of an effective leader are explored; as he addresses the need for accountability, transparency, and integrity to fix what he considers a “broken system” in corporate America.

This compelling read includes chapters on the dumbing down of values, the price of incompetence, the enormous ROI (return on investment) of character, and more.

Leadersh!t provides a paradigm shift for tomorrow’s leaders and reflection for stake holders in current business affairs.

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Leadersh!t by Rande Somma. Booklocker.com, November 2016.

Reviewer bio: Jennifer Brown Banks is a veteran freelance writer, award-winning blogger and avid reader, residing in Illinois. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jenpens2.