Quiet Reading Assignment I

It's that time of the year, can't you just smell the packs of fresh pencils, paper, and OMG, crayons?  Man, I miss those days.  Well, let's be honest, I'm OCD and I just love the opportunity to organize and prepare for a new year.  But here on campus the next few weeks mean the beginning of a fall semester and all the fun that brings.  This also means a new assignment for those of you out there who like to read along.  This fall my faculty and staff book group chose the book the book Quiet by Susan Cain.  


The overview from Barnes and Noble goes a little like this: "At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.  In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves."

Now let's be honest I don't think of myself as an introvert at all.  But after a brief discussion with some graduate assistants in our office this week, I realized something....I keep hiring them!  Now, this could be because I supervise our graphic designer and our marketing guru's, and I've joked about them being my "team" all week.  So I'm super excited to take the time to read a book about how their minds work and how as their supervisor I can better help them.  Plus a few folks in my book group are for sure introverts, they think I don't know it, but I can just see them looking at me like, please don't ask me to talk, I'm just here to listen to everyone else.

Below are the dates of our meetings and the pages we'll be discussing.

September 10th - pages ix - 33
September 24th - pages 34 - 96
October 8th - pages 97 - 129
October 22nd - pages 130 - 180
November 5th - pages 181 - 223
November 19th - pages 224 - 272
 Grab your copy of the book and get ready for an interesting semester.
Magpie

Let's take a little break

I am quickly approaching the time of year where things get busy for me with classes beginning and things just getting back to what I call the normal crazy life.  So this blog and to be honest the next few are going to be a bit out of the norm.  Some fun blogs, maybe a guest blogger, or just a glimpse into the minds of college freshman readers. 

One of the things I enjoy doing to relax, is spend a little time on Pinterest.  Okay, so not a little, I get on it and then all of a sudden its 2 hours later, it's amazing how quickly time can pass.  I digress.  One of my favorite things about Pinterest is when you find that perfect meme that you can identify with, that makes you smile, or just flat out laugh!  I have a whole board that I have dedicated to memes about books or reading, you get the idea.  I've included a few of my favorites below.  I hope you enjoy and I wish you all a very happy weekend.

Magpie

I always have to take a day before I can start a new book.

 

 

I told you I was an Austen fan!

 

We just don't use phrases like "Thou smell of mountain goat" anymore, such a sad world we live in.

 

Its not weird, there is no matching the smell and feel of holding a book.

 

Chapter 6: It's not working - what do I do

You've chosen a book you think folks will love.  Heck, they've even voted for it and been super excited about the selection.  You start reading and its just a total dud.  It happens, and most of the time I'll admit one of two things happen.

First, if it's a book I'm doing with my students, well, I'm going to be honest, I quit reading it and fake it.  It's shameful, I know, I'm the leader, I'm supposed to guide them in the discussion.  But here's the deal, I know how to work around the system.  So here is what I do when I just can't finish a book and still manage to lead the discussion.  Remember this: note cards are your friend.  I will grab a handful of note cards and bring those and some pencils to the meeting.  I have each participant write down one or more questions and BAM, I have my questions for the meeting.  The irony is that most of the times, their questions are great and I've even gone back and finished some of the books.

Secondly, if it's with the faculty/staff group, well, faking it is too hard, so I just grin and bear it.  I always remind myself that not every book is for me and while I may not be enjoying it and while I may not be getting a thing out of it, they might be.  So I'll dig in and make it work.  This is where Google becomes your friend.  Google the book, questions about the book, or just maybe Google information related to it.  I promise you'll find plenty to talk about.  Also don't forget this is where giving assignments that pertain to the book also come in handy.  Turning the tables on the participants takes some of the pressure off of you.

Third, oh yeah, there is a third, I should have mentioned that.  So here is the deal - what happens when it's not just you that doesn't like the book?  I'm always pretty comfortable not finishing a book I've begun reading.  I've come to an age that I don't need to finish reading a book, because I know there are so many more out there that I'm dying to read.  When I lead discussions I always ask, if you don't like it why?  People are allowed not to like a book in my group, but they have to tell me why. 

This spring however, I started noticing more and more folks not liking the book we were doing and that is when it happened, a coup d'état.  The whole group finally admitted they hate it, and well, that's when things got real.  You know what the best part was?  It was okay.  We all had a good laugh about it and somehow the experience has bonded everyone together.  "You remember that horrible book, argh!" For the first time in leading all these book groups I've never had one where we gave up, and now I have to figure out what to do.   Thankfully I was able to make some changes in our schedule and spend one of our sessions voting and discussing our next book options for the fall. 

But here is a way to maybe help prevent this from happening for your group.  First, think about what has worked for your group in the past and go with similar themes, if it isn't broken don't fix it.  Now this doesn't mean you are allowing them to get lazy - it simply means you have to find a new book to challenge them.  Also, and here is a crazy idea, ask them what they'd like to read.  This year because of our debacle I was able to really look at what types of books they did and didn't want to read.  I was able to make selections based on that and I'm super excited about where we are heading in the coming year. 

Remember at the end of the day - it's okay to not finish a bad book - there is too much good stuff out there to be miserable!

Magpie