Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High caught my eye as I was starting a new project that I knew would require an elevated level of listening, conflict resolution, and verbal skill. It’s a physically small book that packed a large punch and I’m even considering giving it a second read.
As I made my way into the vast expanse of Big Bend National Park, I felt I was on another planet. I was totally unfamiliar with this landscape: the heat, the sun, the prickly plants, and, of course, the sand and stone.
At times, I felt the beautiful expansiveness of this protected area. At other times, death became a pervasive thought. As a pale-skinned Yankee, I couldn’t keep myself from thinking how dangerous this landscape seemed and how awful (and easy) it would be to die here.
I’ve heard of the classic struggle between straight couples: she wants to talk, to spend time together, to communicate. And he tends to do things, like gas up the car, mow the lawn or manage the family finances. Both fail to understand why they don’t feel loved or why their tokens of love aren’t fully received by the other partner.
Not every couple who complains has this particular dichotomy, but several who have bent my ear do and a few have mentioned one eye-opening book in particular. Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts intrigued me because I could easily identify two love languages, or so I thought. I wanted to know what the other three were as well.
Women make up almost 20% (59) of the authors on my updated Greatest Books list. To be honest, I’m impressed that the number is that high given the historical, financial, familial, and cultural obstacles that women face. Still, 20% pales in comparison to the fact that women constitute half of the population, both domestically and globally.
So I wanted to spend some time with the female segment of the Greatest Books list and see what I could discern.
First, here’s the complete list, sorted alphabetically by author last name:
The search for the greatest author. This is my latest dive into the Greatest Books list, compiled from GreatestBooks.org, Pulitzer winners, National Book Award winners, and the Modern Library novel list.
In my continued fun with pivot charts, I decided to see if one author, or several, stood head and shoulders above the rest. Numerically, this is determined by simply seeing which authors have the most published works on these combined lists.
And it looks like we have the two Williams, Shakespeare and Faulkner, on the top of the list:
I’m fascinated by how things (and people) work. So imagine how interested I was in this infographic about the daily routines of famous creative people.
Once you’ve got a handle on the color coding and the creative people documented in it, click on the image to bring it up in a new tab.
On the Podio webpage, you can toggle between the daily routines. Interested in the sleep routines of your favorite creatives? Click on Sleep in the legend and you’ll only see that category in the chart. Likewise, with creative work, day jobs, etc.
I’ve been diving into my Greatest Books list lately. As I added more details to the document, I wondered if there was an outstanding year on the list (read about that here). Then I wondered if there was a greatest decade for literature.
And here’s what I found:
