Browsing Tag

book review

Shrewd Samaritan

My latest favorite book is Shrewd Samaritan: Faith, Economics, and the Road to Loving Our Global Neighbor by Bruce Wydick. This book so impressed me I bought a dozen copies and gave them to people who should read it. And who should read it? Anyone working in poverty alleviation, anyone giving to charitable organizations, and anyone interested in how to measure impact.

Reading this book was like a breath of fresh air. Faith based but not preachy, practical but compassionate, and thoughtful without being academic. If you read this blog then you know a book that focuses on how to …

Book Reviews, Leadership,

The Advantage

On a recent trip to Belize with the PathLight board, one of the board members suggested I read The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. Most of Lencioni’s books are in my library but for whatever reason this one got past me.

My mistake. This might be his best ever.

The subtitle of the book sums it up nicely, “Why organizational health trumps everything else in business.” Think about that for a moment — Lencioni is saying organizational health trumps strategy, product, marketing, service, hard work and talent.

Anyone who has run any kind of organization will intuitively sense the truth in …

Belize, Book Reviews, PathLight,

Rooting for Rivals

Rooting for Rivals by Peter Greer and Chris Horst is one of those books all of us in ministry need to read. The premise of the book is simple: when nonprofit groups work collaboratively, generously, and across organizational boundaries, putting aside rivalry, great things can then transpire. All of us who work in the nonprofit world know how obvious this is, but we also know it should be practiced more frequently. I’m glad Peter and Chris finally wrote what we all needed to hear.

Despite the lovey-dovey image of the nonprofit world, it can sometimes be as ruthless as the …

Book Reviews,

Everybody Always

Everybody Always is the new book by Bob Goff, and I gotta tell you it’s exceptional. Bob had a runaway hit with his first book Love Does, but I worried for my friend because a lot of second books often disappoint. I should have known better — Bob doesn’t do anything halfway, and Everybody Always is fantastic.

Of course, it’s not actually his second book, as he explains at the beginning of the book. His second book is somewhere on a hard drive inside a stolen laptop computer that Bob failed to backup. Oops. But perhaps that’s for the …

Book Reviews,

Zeal Mixed With Theology

In his biography of the Apostle Paul, N.T. Wright emphasized zeal and theology in a way that … well, in a way that worked. There are a lot of books about Paul’s theology, but not many well written biographies. Leave it to N.T. Wright to author a biography about a intellectual from 2000 years ago and make it engaging!

If theology isn’t your thing, I still think you’d enjoy this book. The author takes clues from Paul’s writing as well as from early Church historians to blend together a fascinating profile of the man who did more to spread …

Book Reviews,

The Influential Mind

If you are curious how people make decisions, then The Influential Mind by Tali Sharot is a must-read book. The subtitle of the book, “what the brain reveals about our power to change others,” sums it up really well.

The author has done extensive research and cites her findings as well as other leading experts. Somehow it never devolves into “professional psycho-babble” talk and comes across as easy to understand and comprehend. I now realize that the author put her findings to work and definitely influenced me to appreciate her insights!

If you are in the story telling business — …

Book Reviews,

Leonardo da Vinci

A few days ago I was enjoying a brief visit with long time friends. By a warm fire with a glass of wine in my hand, they asked one of my favorite questions: “So Roy, any book suggestions?”

Without hesitation I said they must read Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.

Isaacson is one of my favorite biographers because he explains how his subjects — such as Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger, and Steve Jobs — innovate at the intersection of science and art. These are Renaissance thinkers who understood electricity, physics, politics, technology … but also literature, beauty, …

Book Reviews,

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

A few months ago D’Aun hired an olive oil consultant to help with a few questions. It’s a long story, but the consultants friend was none other than Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Robin seemed like a really nice guy, and the book had good reviews, so we got a copy.

Wow. Where the heck have I been? I mean, why did it take me so long to hear about this book and check it out?

Penumbra is fantastic. Fun plot, great writing, extraordinarily creative, contemporary with a touch of ancient wisdom, funny but in an …