Jeffery Harvey

So, yes...it's a textbook. On qualitative research, at that.

But I still enjoyed it.

I enjoy qualitative research. It's not that I am "for" it at the expensive of the quantitative work, it's just that I believe qualitative research can provide the context that's necessary for really understanding phenomena. Merriam and Tisdell's text is a functional introduction to qualitative research full of helpful advice, graphics, and samples. As the authors note, there is no substitute for getting into the field and doing some qualitative research. Still, having a reference or two on the shelf is handy when it comes time to check one's assumptions.

My thoughts on this one are complicated.

By happenstance, I read it when the story was set, and in one case, I read a journal entry on the day the main character "entered" it.

I'm typically not a science fiction or post-apocalyptic literature fan, though I'm a sucker for a good story. I'm not sure the story is here, though the development of the Lauren Olamina character is rich and layered. I wanted more of that from some other characters, but I get this is the first of two in a series (and, from what I read, potentially was the first of three before Butler's untimely passing). There are eerie elements that read like prognostications on Butler's part, and while one can still hold hope that things won't get that bad, it's not hard to see how it could.

I also have trouble reading novels structured as vignettes, journal entries, flashes, etc. I find myself being lost in the details, trying to remember every little thing on the off chance they're foreshadows for something down the road. Oddly, though, I find the pace of novels structured as such to be too fast for absorption. So, yes, this paragraph definitely describes a "me thing," but I need to make note of it in my review.

One might think that this is a negative review, but as I said, it's complicated. I couldn't put the book down; when I would, I had to force myself to not "just go one more page." I found myself really enjoying the Earthseed verses, and I would have been interested in Lauren's reflection on them. How did she wrestle with the concepts and the language? As the narrator, Lauren notes that she revised them substantially. As such, I would have enjoyed seeing earlier "drafts," or possibly even recreations of the handwritten journal pages as images to see some of the scribbles that we all make when revising our work.

The writer of the afterward shared similar reflections. She said it took her three tries to really dig the book on a personal level. Maybe I'm like that. If so, I'm game for a re-read down the line.

After a long time and much gnashing of teeth, I come to the end of The Brothers Karamazov. My thoughts on it are complicated.

Do I find this one worthy of its "classic" status? No, not really. Yet, I recognize that I am not well versed on the Russian history I imagine Dostoevsky integrates through conversations between characters, references to other parts of the country, or even satirically. Maybe there really is more going on with it.

I find long passages and tangents unnecessary. The centrality of Father Zossima, followed, after the monk's death, Ilusha, are examples. They are interesting, but they drag the pace of the novel down to excruciatingly slow. This book is at its best in the scenes where the investigators question Mitya and even Book 12 as the trial unfolds.

The narrator's voice also confounds me. It is an external voice, and I am comfortable with that. As the novel progresses, though, the narrator becomes more and more capable of interpreting the thoughts of the characters. For me, it is jarring, and it pulls me away from thinking of the narrator as someone else that resides in their town.

Still, though, I find myself glad to have read it. It came to me as a title on a "100 books to read" list, and I'll readily admit that I would not have otherwise picked it up. My goal by working through said list was exactly that: to pick up books I otherwise would have no reason to want to read. It brings to mind how limited our (i.e., the western mindset of the U.S.) understanding of pre-Soviet Russian history is. I also find myself reflecting on the image of Dostoevsky portrayed by friends and family. The writing is not miserable. The story itself (and the accompanying storytelling) were not terrible. I can see where he could have a tendency to dive into period-specific Russian context, that is, commentary on those events that were current and widely-known at the time the novel was published. Familiarizing oneself with that history could be helpful, but a heavy lift for the casual reader.

I enjoyed this text immensely. Long before undertaking graduate study in strategic and executive leadership, I studied linguistics. I've always been a fan of language, and the first 20 years of my career saw that fandom evolve into being a fan of the many uses of language. That, in a nutshell, is why discursive leadership piqued my interest. I've read several of Fairhurst's article on the framing, communications, discourse, and organizational discourse analysis (ODA), so I was excited to dive into this volume.

It did not disappoint. Fairhurst does a great job of making the abstract accessible, primarily through example. Her extended use of the Officer Conway example, for instance, helps the reader to not only understand the initial idea, but also to build on that understanding ("setting it," so to speak). The work is thoroughly cited, leaving the readers with an interest with a trove of future readings.

The tone of this book, though, is the star. When I work with my students, there's an implicit, albeit misguided, understanding that theories of (or approaches to) leadership replace one another chronologically. Framing the discursive approach as a stand-alone concept OR a complement to leadership psychology study was insightful and skillful. I find myself thinking about certain approaches as "what leadership is" and others as "how leadership happens." I try to convey that to students (with, admittedly mixed results), yet the way Fairhurst approaches that conversation in the opening and concluding chapters of this text give me new ways of going into it with future students.

This review was written right after finishing the text. I journaled along the way, jotting down general notes, connection to various research projects of my own, and insightful passages. I'll go through those in due time. But for now, my first blush of this one is a strong recommendation to anyone who is interested in the communicative aspects of leadership or how leadership happens.

I found my copy of On Language when cleaning out a closet. I purchased it in 2001 while with my wife on our honeymoon. At that time, I had grand designs on a master's degree in linguistics that progressed, but never completely panned out.

Still, I am a lover of language and finding this one all dusty at the bottom of a closet was like getting a gift.

It takes me a bit to get back into the swing of Chomsky's writing because he has a bit of snark that is simultaneously engaging and off-putting. The one thing that snark does do, though, is makes reading this feel like being in a conversation. Speaking of conversation, I found the Language and Responsibility section to be the more enjoyable of the two books under this one cover. The interview elements between Chomsky and Ronat ebbed and flowed, focusing on language but not being afraid to touch on numerous other subjects. It was organic and informative (and much faster to read).

I enjoyed the Reflections on Language section, but if I'm being honest, I could take or leave the final chapter. I appreciated the insights and the details, but there were times when the writing felt like a tired man yelling at clouds. I should qualify that statement. Much of the issue was my own unfamiliarity with the writings of the authors to whom Chomsky was responding. I recognize that if (a) I was a working linguist in the 1970s and 1980s or (b) I was more educated and active in the contemporary world of linguistics, these arguments would be more accessible to me. As such, that qualifier is critical. I also recognize that I'm reading a volume that was responsive to the current discourse at the time of its publication 50 years after its original publication - another critical qualifier.

Finally, I want to acknowledge how much I enjoyed reading this through the lens of what has become my academic and professional career. At the time of this review - i.e., early 2025 - I am reading a lot of literature about discursive leadership. The sections of Chomsky's interview with Ronat where they discussed Foucault were fascinating to read against that backdrop, knowing what I've come to understand about (D)iscourse. Thinking of communication (broadly) and its effects on leadership while deconstructing the structure of the language forming "communication" was a fruitful mental exercise. Poet Irene McKinney once wrote something like, "Why should the worm care what it eats?" in a poem called Fodder. I love that poem because it captures the mindset of the bookworm (pun intended). When we read, we can't help but relativize the content to our unfolding experience. Diving into the structure of language, as a tool for communication, which is so important to the act of leading...that's what made my brain smile.

I have read about adaptive leadership for some time, which includes summaries of it, studies based on it, etc. It only made sense to go back and read the seminal work.

I enjoyed Heifetz's book. I am glad to see that, over time, the five "steps" of adaptive leadership have been given empirical attention because, at a basic level (and once one accepts the premise that adaptive challenges are those that require leadership while all others require management or technical solutions), they are intuitive. In particular, it's difficult to "identify the adaptive challenge," and I'm reminded of the readings and reflections I've done on discursive modes of leadership. There's a wonderful opportunity to utilize discursive tools to defined the adaptive challenge. "Give the work back to the people" also resonates with me. As defined herein, there is some ambiguity, but generally getting a team to align behind a challenge and work - participatively - toward a resolution are elements of leadership, broadly defined (and well beyond just the work of "adaptive leadership").

I often have a weird feeling when reading a book from before that is filled with real-life examples featuring actors whose futures we know. This book appeared in 1994, and I can't help but read the passages on President Carter without knowing about his time from the 90s to the recent present. This book does not fall victim to the fate of a book like Collin's Good to Great because of the future performance of featured firms, but I felt similar in reading it.

My explorations of adaptive leadership are not done. I'll read Heifetz's follow-up, and I'll continue reading more empirical considerations of the adaptive style. My interests ensure that I'll consider adaptive leadership through a discursive lens.

For years, I'd have students come into my doctoral classes eager to cite Northouse. I had read scanned snippets of earlier versions, but I set about to read the latest version I could find cover to cover. From a content standpoint, it did not disappoint. Northouse provides an introduction to a range of leadership theories, and the consistent structure of the chapters, though a tad dry, is effective at giving readers comparative points for the theories/approaches included. The book was a dense read, but it was not a hard read. Each chapter took me about an hour, give or take just a few minutes.

The only chapter with which I'd quibble regarding content was the final one of team leadership (contributed by a guest author). I have studied shared and distributed leadership, and I found that chapter to be a bit limiting because of an over-reliance on process. I fully admit that the chapter focused on team leadership rather than shared or distributed leadership. Thus, the structure related to the work team context. Still, there were some passages that tried to integrate shared and distributed leadership into the team context, and I did not feel the author was as successful as she could have been.

The reason this book did not receive a five-star rating from me is its publishing. It's a Sage book, and I have always found Sage to be a quality publisher with solid editing. Yet, this edition was littered with typos and mistakes, ranging from missing spaces between words to obvious misspellings in section headings (e.g., "Inclusjve" instead of "Inclusive"). If this is the direction in which Sage is heading, it will soon find itself knocked off its pedestal as a quality publisher of leadership and management texts.

As is becoming a late-2024/early-2025 theme for me, this book was a tough one to rate. Its title specifically references the nonprofit sector, yet there is very little in the text that is specific to nonprofits (beyond vague references to the importance of nonprofit work). I understand the authors have extensive nonprofit experience, and in that sense, I appreciate that they did not overreach.

In full disclosure, I used this book as one of several resources for a course I taught on nonprofit management. I meant it as the accessible resource, the one that students could keep at arms reach and open for direct, succinct, X-Y-Z advice. In that sense, this book functions wonderfully.

There is nothing in this book that is not covered ad nauseam in other management texts, and I would not even say there is anything here presented in a total unique way. I feel bad saying it, but there is nothing memorable about the book. It is a strange fit for Jossey-Bass. Their texts, in my experience, have been "practically theoretical," and by that, I mean that they have been theory heavy but have attempted to give readers ideas on how to implement said theory. This text, though, feels more like a split between practice and self-help. Green and Hauser disclose some theoretical underpinnings, but I found there to be minimal discussion of why these topics were of importance to the nonprofit (or any) manager.

I recognize that I have been hard on this book. When I used it in the aforementioned class, my students indicated overall satisfaction with it. They found it accessible and helpful to their development. That placement suggests to me a contextual consideration for selecting this title - it is a solid text for the aspiring, inexperienced manager (nonprofit or otherwise).

This title was incredible difficult for me to rate, so I copped out and rated it down the middle.

Beerel is obviously well-versed in leadership studies, and she condenses extensive literature on all of the covered approaches and related topics into manageable and accessible chunks. Her writing is scholarly without being stuck on itself. I appreciated that she wrote energetically about topics like mindfulness, and I was pleased to see a diligent exploration of neuroscience within leadership studies, spiritual leadership, and transpersonal leadership. I learned numerous factoids and found myself digging further into the literature on several topics because of this text. These are all good things.

But it’s not all good things. The tone of the writing veers into the snarky far too much for my taste. There is a way to suggest a more critical view of certain approaches (like transformational or authentic leadership) without being flippant or near-insulting. I am not against scholars citing their own work in subsequent writings, but Beerel’s prior texts were foundational sources for much of the discussion. I understand she wrote the book during the coronavirus pandemic, but in my opinion, she overused the pandemic as a case too often. It would be an effective highlight here and there, but otherwise, she may have wanted to consider a “leadership in the time of COVID-19” book. Finally, the chapter on crisis leadership was limited and devoid of the depth that it has received in scholarly literature. These were the negatives that made the book tough for me to finish.

I would recommend this title for leadership students, but unless the students were graduate or doctoral with some prior background in leadership studies, I would hesitate to make it a text for a course.

I read this book per the recommendations of colleagues at my university. I enjoyed it, particularly the focus on leading "inside-out." I happen to believe that while leading is a collective, human act, effectively leading requires leaders to be self-aware.

In many ways, the text is a re-characterization of leadership tricks published in many other sources (including scholarly research). I'm fine with that because topics connect with people in different ways. Maybe Maor et al.'s way of presenting them works for some people, and if so, that's great.

I also rated the book highly because it is accessible. There's an element here - as there always is with these types of books - of writing about a topic like empathy like it's a formulaic how-to for achievement. As such, I encourage readers to simply be mindful of the potential complexity of these 12 leadership elements as they read. Use the writing for examples, and be far-reaching to identify other examples from within one's own experiences. The book is a quasi-advertisement for McKinsey's Bower Fora, which is understandable (but might be off-putting for some readers). Finally, as is often the case with books like this, readers should dig deeper to understand the elements and not simply tag themselves to the leaders or companies referenced by the book. There are several companies mentioned by name, and what is referenced is what exists at this point in time with respect to those companies. Think long and hard about whether what is in the book will diminish in ten years if, say, a company or its CEO suffers some sort of reputational crisis.

This book became far more difficult to finish that I expected. I was excited to read it, had heard good reviews of it from colleagues, loved the title, etc. Unfortunately, it just didn't land for me.

This review is also more difficult than it should be to compose. It's hard to say that the book is fine, but I didn't care much for it!

I don't mean that as a criticism of the author or editor. The book is well-written and presented, and the language is accessible and effective. It is, though, a book for a targeted audience. I've led an organization for nearly 20 years, and I often tell people I'm the most reluctant entrepreneur one could meet. I enjoy reading management books because (a) I'm a little strange, and (b) it's an area where I feel like I can always improve. In that sense, there's nothing new in the pages of Radical Candor that I haven't read before. There are some excellent take-away snippets (like the “Get Stuff Done” Wheel and the chapter on improving meetings), and the overall theme of communicating development feedback continually is common yet continues to be good advice.

The problem for me is what feels like the unintended target audience: those with tech leadership proclivities. I'm not particularly enamored with Silicon Valley. The tech is fine, and the innovations of the past several years have enriched my life (as with everyone else). While I appreciated Scott's personal stories, and I understand that her experience is going to color the book with the Silicon Valley hue, it became difficult for me not to read this as an entreaty to “Just copy tech companies and experience success.” There's more to it, of course, and the Scott tries to convey that.

So I rate this one with three stars - straight down the middle. I suspect others will read it and love it, just as I suspect others will have a strongly negative reaction. I can think of a few people within my circles who would likely connect with it and derive substantial benefit; I'll recommend it to them without hesitation. For me, the material was fine, but it didn't convey much impact, and as such, I don't anticipate rereading this one in full.

Put simply, I enjoyed this read immensely.

I say that in full-on disaster-nerd mode. A testimonial on the cover notes a strength of the book as Punke's situating the North Butte Mining Disaster into the context of its day. I agree; that effort was skillful, and it helped me to feel both the human and temporal sides of the disaster. Punke also noted that he intentionally did not included direct quotes in the book unless they originated in a media piece or other document from the era. That was another strength of the writing. It's a non-fiction title that reads like a fictional narrative; it's that accessible.

As a scholar of crisis management and emergency management, I've often told students and clients alike that disasters are unequivocally tied to the context in which they occur. Prevailing thoughts, politics, competing events...all of these things influence how we view the event and the damage it causes. In the case of the North Butte disaster, it's easy for us to criticize the safety measures that were in-place, and it's easy for us to marvel at the level to which a company could take advantage of its personnel. But we're not in 1917. We're not pre-labor regulation (largely). We're not living during a world war (yet), nor are we on the cusp of a recession or depression (hopefully).

Punke's narrative also makes me think of the leaders who were thrust into this crisis. At what threshold does culpability start or end? How much credit do we (i.e., observers from afar) give for effort? Some of my favorite authors on crisis management and crisis leadership talk about managing accountability as one of a small set of key tasks for crisis managers/leaders. This story makes me think about how these characters handled that accountability. On one hand, it's obvious who was at fault, and it's also obvious that they were active in the response and its aftermath. But was that enough? Can a crisis be so big that the appropriate corporate response is to shut down? We all know that it's nearly impossible to put a price on a human life, but when a company does and provides a death benefit to a family, are we right to criticize said company for what it determines, regardless of the number?

I imagine all of you reading this will have varying answers. I'm pretty sure that the way I answer those questions will be different when I return to this review.

So it is with disasters. The interconnections of our complex world make disasters almost inevitable, and each new fact we learn about them changes our perception of the response. Even for those that occurred more than 100 years ago.

Read this book and soak it in. Think about its stories and what they mean. Put yourself in the shoes of various characters. And marvel at the resilience we humans are capable of demonstrating.

This one is a hard one for me to review. Why? It wasn't the book that I thought it was going to be.

Now, that's as much on me as anyone else. I read some snippets and press materials, and I was drawn in by an ethical examination climate change as a catastrophe, and for what it's worth, as an emergency manager, I was anticipating a sort of spin-off of ethical considerations for climate change-exacerbated disasters as well.

But again, that's not what this book was.

That said, I didn't NOT enjoy the book; in fact, when I reoriented my headspace, I quite liked several passages. Rieder makes the reader think, and that's a strength of the book. There were passages and phrases that stuck with me for days, and I even shared a few of those in photo form (properly cited, of course!) on other social feeds. I've studied ethics at a surface level while working towards degrees, and it was refreshing to see a contemporary spin put on popular ethics debates like abortion.

I read one review on Goodreads that lambasted the final chapter of Catastrophe Ethics as overly didactic and woke, and I understand how a review like that could hit the waves, so to speak. I didn't read the last chapter as preachy, though. It was Rieder's attempt to situate a newly-coined term - “catastrophe ethics” - into a complicated, interconnected world where his Puzzle is all around us. (You can't hide if you're a climate change denier.) Like all valid (in my opinion) ethical discussions, conversants should feel a tinge of discomfort.

For me, I once read from a textbook that one of the differences between ethics and morals is that ethics are collectively-focused, while morals are more personally-focused. That's understandably reductive, but it's something I've carried with me for a few years now. That said, perhaps there was room in this book to distinguish ethics and morals more explicitly. It's there, but there are also plenty of instances where there's a murkiness caused by overlapping uses of the two constructs. Would that change my view of the value of the book? No, but it was something for which I was looking when beginning the reading.

I still want to read the book that looks at the ethical challenges surrounding disaster (or “catastrophes” as mega disasters), and I'm bummed that it wasn't between these covers. Still, I'm glad to have read this one, and I enjoyed Rieder's writing style. I'll dive back into this one again, someday, when I really want to focus more broadly on ethical thinking.

The Prepared Leader: Emergency from Any Crisis More Resilient than Before is easily one of the best crisis leadership books I've read in a while. It will be amongst a small group of texts to which I frequently refer in my own teaching on disaster/emergency management and crisis leadership.

James and Wooten do a great job of making this work accessible. That's a strength of their scholarly writing, and this book takes that up a notch. The text is written such that practitioners can keep it on file as a reference, checking in with it again and again as they encounter new situations and seek to develop their crisis leadership capability. That's a real strength of this title.

I found myself highlighting several “sound bytes” across my social media channels from the text. I appreciate pithy, memorable quotes, and there were several here dealing with framing, the importance of learning, technology as a tool, etc.

The text approaches crises from the organizational perspective, though the lessons don't exclude and are certainly applicable to community-level crisis management. In fact, in the seemingly age-old debate over the differences between crises and disasters, I felt the authors did an admirable job of providing language that works in both contexts. Put simply, a disaster is a specific type of crisis.

In truth, I found the text to be just a bid heavy on COVID-19, but you know what? How can you blame crisis leadership scholars and authors for writing about COVID-19? In the mid-2000s, the writings grappled with Hurricane Katrina, and the pandemic will feature at least as much as that (I would imagine). (Disclosure: I have published papers on COVID-19.) So even though my brain cries a little every time I read “covid,” I recognize it for the crisis leadership laboratory that has been, is, and will be. Kudos to James and Wooten for pulling out the lessons from the pandemic and making them relevant to “the crisis” more generally.

It's obvious that my recommendation is to read the book.

But don't just read it. Buy it. Highlight in it. Mark it up. Put sticky note flags in it. Use it as part of a comprehensive effort to be a better crisis leader.

After years of watching movies and various ilk, it was high time to read the original. I enjoyed it very much. It was a quick read, yet still full of the thick and superfluous language that, for me, characterizes 18th and 19th century English writing. What surprised me, though, was how snarky the writing was. I was expected Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, but while the narrative was very Dickensien, this one simply had more of a pub feel than I expected.

I'm also struck by how much I've been conditioned by modern “sensibilities.” Cable network FX recently did a take on the story starring Guy Pearce as Scrooge. It was dark and stark, and it felt like it was exploring themes that TV mini-series in the 80s would have been afraid to explore. Thus, I expected to see more of Scrooge's back story from that remake in the books. There was really only one noticeable them...Scrooge's loneliness at boarding school and a bit of the fantasy sequence with Ali Baba. I happily stand corrected that sometimes, things are beautifully simple (and that's okay).

A friend has long said that A Muppets Christmas Carol was the most faithful retelling of the actually novella. I think he is right! It's funny to me that the actual text from the story made the Muppet version funnier, and as noted in above, I wasn't expecting that to be a part of the “real” story.

Many people have pointed out the centrality of Tiny Tim and his impact on Scrooge's change. I see that. I understand it. But, to me, it was the familial connection to Fred that made the change. With the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge lets go for the first time when eavesdropping on Fred's dinner. It's the first time we see the suspicion start to fall for Scrooge. It's also a lesson. Our connections to our families are the most visceral we have...they're there first, they last the longest, and we love our families through thick and thin. Even when we're on the outs with a relative, there's something that will bring us together despite the animosity. (Of course, there are exceptions...I fully recognize that some people are just demons.) We need the familial foundation and connection before we can be moved by the Tiny Tims of the world.

In all, it's a good read. Do yourself a favor and put this on the list for the holiday season.

This title had been on my shelf for quite some time. A few years ago, while studying for my doctoral degree, a group of students to which I belong read An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization by Kegan and Lahey. I enjoyed that book, and the authors made a passing reference to this one. Finally, nearly seven years after purchasing it, I got the chance to pick it up.

Generally, it did not disappoint. Given its publication in 2001, it was somewhat interesting to consider the frame through which digital connections were noted in this book. I wonder how the ways we connect now, 22 years later, would influence the writing. Fortunately, I believe the seven languages translate to today's environment.

I appreciated the interactive nature of the writing. Yes, I actually sketched out the “assignments” in my journal, using an experience at my consulting firm to explore my internal commitments and big assumptions. Doing so was a great way to engage with the material.

The first four (internal) languages came off the page sufficiently in the first part of the book, so much so that I didn't pick up a lot of extra insight from the subsequent chapter about bringing the internal languages to life. Conversely, though I felt the description of the social languages to be sufficient, the chapter about bringing them to life was particularly strong. It tied the entire book together for me, and caused my to close the back cover with a sense of satisfaction.

It's important that we take developmental books like with a grain of salt. That said, I anticipate coming back to this one. There were times reading the penultimate chapter about brining the social languages to life that I thought of my roles as a professor and a consultant, and ideas abounded about enhancing the connections I make with my students and clients. I'm excited to try those things out. All-in-all, this was a solid title, easy to read, with actionable advice that has stood up to at least the past 20 years. A good read!

I've read some of these stories multiple times. I first remember reading “Trilobites” in the Fall of 1999. I'll say that's when it was because that's the first time I remember reading it. As an English major at West Virginia University, I was in a senior seminar class whose task was to review West Virginia authors and suggest inclusions for an anthology of their literature. That class was in the Spring of 2000, and I know I had read the story before that class. (WVU Press ultimately published that anthology as Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia.

As my first real exposure to Breece D'J Pancake, I now read his work through the dense tapestry of that West Virginia literature. I'm sure that influences the themes that I pull from these stories because it seems like West Virginians not only live these themes, but they also write about them in a range of ways.

To wit, I'm not sure there's a character that I like or admire in this collection of stories, but I can't put them out of my mind. I look out my home or office window, and I see them. Whether it's Colly's ability to see things as they are but to not completely discard things as he wants to see them or Hollis yearning to get away but knowing he can't save for something drastic, Pancake mixes sadness with weight, honor, familial shackles, and lost love with the best of them.

One has to think of the time at which Pancake wrote these stories: the late 1970s. I can't say there's a celebration of the poverty and seediness of Appalachia, but there are times when the dialog runs so close to cliched that I have to wonder if that's a more modern, socially conscious take rearing up. From the posthumous accounts of Pancake's life, one suspects that it was not meant for cliche; those are the characters whose paths Pancake himself might have crossed.

These stories are heavy, and I doubt readers walk away from them truly uplifted. Perhaps they feel a stronger connection to themselves or their homes. Perhaps they identify the tension in their life that drags them down but holds them too tightly for them to let go.

The stories are brilliant, yet somehow left wanting. As so many have noted before me, the magic and sadness of this book is, in part, thinking about what Pancake might have written had he lived.

(I listed this edition of the book because it came from a discount shelf from my local library. What's more, this is the first book my daughter ever gave to me as a gift. She was just learning to walk at the time she grabbed it, knowing only that it was a book. Of course she would have had no way to know about that class in the Spring of 2000 and my connection to West Virginia's literature.)

Another entry from the “I Survived...” series:

Again, I appreciate the human element coming through the narrative. Tarshis does a nice job of crafting a story that doesn't get in the way of the gravity of the situation. With this one, I appreciate the focus on the widespread destruction of the tsunami. It's easy to overlook anything associated with the wave not connected to Fukushima Diiachi.

I'll just say it. I loved this book.

I've followed Katharine Hayhoe via social media feeds for a bit now, and I've been impressed by her practical, accessible efforts to communicate climate change. As an emergency management consultant, I've experienced the challenge of connecting the science to action, particularly in the mitigation and disaster recovery phases. I picked up the book not really knowing what to expect, but I figured it would be relatable.

Relatable it was, and I was struck by how actionable it is. It's not that I expected to be brow-beaten by facts. I knew from Hayhoe's social feeds that's not her style. I found myself nodding to the climate data, learning as I went, but I really found myself digging the other data from behavioral and social science disciplines. Integration of fields is challenging, and I feel it's missing from so many good books aiming to inform readers on a variety of important topics. While I'll pick up any interesting book, it was wonderfully helpful to have relevant information on climate, etc., under a single cover rather than just across the room on my shelf.

I found Sections 2 and 3 to be particularly impactful. I'd recommend reading the whole book, but if you're into previewing, there's the place to start.

I've never been a fan of children's books, and though this likely falls more under the category of “young adult,” through the years, I've still not been inclined to pick up these types of titles. Yet, being an emergency manager and crisis leadership academic, I couldn't resist checking out the back cover while in the book store. For kicks, I bought it (thinking it might be something my daughter might eventually like to read since she's shown an interest in what I do for a living). I read it in a day, and it turns out, I enjoyed it!

Tarshis does a good job of weaving a narrative around the historical events. It reminds me of the many behavioral scientists I've read who emphasize the need for a story to drive home facts and figures. Of course, this is hyperbolized fiction, but the story resonates in similar ways. I also love the fact that the author includes a brief section in the back of the book with other sources to read and more straight-forward factual information about the event in question. I chose the eruption of St. Helens because it happened on my second birthday. However, given my experience in researching events like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Joplin tornado, I look forward to reading those titles. Stories are important, yes, but not at the expense of the facts. As such, there's connection and the opportunity to learn. Well done, Lauren Tarshis!

I came to read Bascomb's Sabotage: Mission to Destroy Hitler's Atomic Bomb as a gift from my five-year-old daughter. She and my wife were at the local library book sale, and she picked it up “for daddy.” How, then, was I not to read it?

I was intrigued after reading the jacket cover, and I'll admit to being very surprised by the text itself. I rolled through this book in less than a week (which was a busy work week at that, with a lot of travel). Bascomb's prose was engaging, and it kept the pace of the book intact, even when the Operation Grouse members were simply waiting through the Vidda winters.

For context, I knew nothing of this operation, nor more than a passing notion that if the U.S. and its allies were pursuing atomic weaponry, so too must have been their enemies. The book balances enough detail in the process of producing heavy water and how that related to the Nazi's efforts to build a uranium reactor and, consequently, an atomic bomb to aid in my understanding of why the Vemork plant was so important with the need to tell a story. Sabotage is, after all, a human story.

I enjoyed the maps (to visualize the setting) as well as the photographs (to connect me to the central characters). I also appreciated the brief introduction to Norwegian pronunciations at the start of the text. As such, I found myself trying to pronounce the terms correctly, and that helped me to remember person and place names, which enabled a recall of those people and places while reading along. Otherwise, I would have glossed over those names and been somewhat lost as to how they all connected as the story developed.

Though I enjoy history, I find that I engage with it better via television than through the written word. Sabotage is a notable exception to my rule and well worth the read.

Though not a disaster book per se, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago fits right alongside many of the best scenario/incident-specific disaster books out there. This book doesn't have the narrative flair of, say, Five Days at Memorial, but it is equally poignant and very telling as to what makes an extreme weather event a “disaster.”

The ingredients for disaster are all around us, and they're woven into the fabric of our communities. The age and maintenance status of infrastructure systems is known. Ditto the differences in experience of urban and rural communities. And while “social vulnerability” is another known ingredient, Klinenberg helps us to realize that there's more to it than just dropping people into social vulnerability buckets: age, poverty status, transportation access, race, etc.

How do social vulnerability variables interact and overlap?

Who are these people, and what type of support do they really need?

What can a public sector entity do?

As you read Heat Wave, you can't help but think about the evolution of the modern community. The patterns of interaction, in/out migration, spatial need, etc., that built our cities aren't the patterns that prevail today. To be connected means something in today's world that was unfathomable when the primary way to be connected was by being in touch with (and often close to) family or being outside in your neighborhood. When you think of that, what makes a neighborhood? The physical has long given way to the notional. And with that, a need to re-envision physical spaces emerges.

Growing up and living in a rural area (albeit one with a robust enough transportation infrastructure to be within striking distance of several cities), I've always been fascinated by the pockets of community that exist in cities. My hometown wasn't big enough to have physical areas settled by immigrants from common areas of the world. It's in those pockets where place and personal identity are intertwined, and though in another space I could list the many things that are great about small communities, that place attachment is just different in cities. Heat Wave dissects that notion and prods us to look at the preparedness, response, and resilience implications.

Finally, what review written in 2023 would be complete without a nod to the themes from the book that we say play out during the COVID-19 pandemic? Widespread denial, fact bending, framing, definitional smoke and mirrors, scapegoating, deflecting...should we be comforted or abhorred that none of that stuff was new and unique to the pandemic?

Klinenberg is most successful at helping his readers question “What is a disaster?” Considering the social fabric of a community is an important step at understanding how a disaster might unfold in one's community.

It took three and a half years to read this book, but that really has nothing to do with the book. Throw the pandemic into the mix, as well as my time as the Director of Safety and Emergency Preparedness for a public school district, and it was a while before I could pick something up that discussed (in large part) school system preparedness and response.

I appreciated the authors' efforts to not compile a simplified, cookie-cutter how-to list. There are several cited resources (some of which I had read) that added a collaborative spirit and credibility to the narrative. Further, I appreciated the focus on situational awareness and personal accountability. As a planner, I was pleased to see acknowledgement of how active true planning can be, with a need to customize a set of guidelines for place, context, personnel, etc. Planning is hard, and it's unfortunate that so many relegate it to an often templated, regulatory exercise.

In summary, the content won't be for everyone, but this text offers balanced, thoughtful ways to respond to crises.

It's difficult for me to write a review of this book.

First, the author's style was direct, and he exercised an intense focus on the practitioner implementing a strategic planning process. For that, I was appreciative. This book appeared on the syllabus of a graduate course I was assigned to teach. My students appreciated the how-to nature of the writing. Yet, in the Kindle version at least, there were numerous typos, and the formulaic presentation of each chapter was like reading 360 pages of nothing but iambic pentameter.

Second, I've used information from this book in my consulting planning pursuits. Wilkinson's recognition of infinite verbs to start goals was excellent and useful, as was the related note of using quantifiable verbs for objectives. Still, despite the author emphasizing the simplicity of the Driver's Model, it's a system that leans toward needing a professionally-trained facilitator. Once deconstructed, the model is relatable, but on its surface, it's anything but.

In summary, it's not a book that leaves me with a sense of pleasure or accomplishment upon completion, but it's a book I find myself regularly referencing - a three-star, useful read.

I took a break from reading historical classics and emergency management books to dip back into some fiction. With an undergraduate degree in creative writing, I'm aware of the writers hailing from my small hometown, and as such, I'm familiar with Phillips' work thanks to a shared hometown and an anthology project from said undergraduate program.

First, I enjoyed Quiet Dell immensely.

Though I grew up 20 miles or so from the community, I was not aware of the Powers murders. I read the book alongside light research on the case. The history of an area is baked into its present, and I appreciated the opportunity to understand a little more about North Central West Virginia.

Phillips did a wonderful job or interweaving fiction with the historical accounting. The first third of the book, set entirely in Illinois, was appreciated, though once readers are introduced to Emily Thornhill, the pace picks up. The inclusion of photographs from 1930's era Clarksburg were terrific. I found myself jumping back and forth from the photos to current pictures. Knowing about the current renovations of the Gore Hotel, it's great to see efforts to restore it. One hopes the same thing for the Waldorf. Looking at the current Quincy Street area, one can find nearly where the grocery stood.

Phillips's writing is typically quite dense, with layered imagery, and I've had to read many of her other works slowly. The narrative of this novel was more straight-forward. The layering was there, but a reader can hit the high points on the narrative and enjoy the story.

Me, I could have done without the ethereal Annabel narratives following her passing. I understand why they were there, and there's sentimental value to knowing that she was connected to Duty and Mrs. Pomeroy, but all Annabel excerpts after the first one (at the time of her death) felt superfluous.

All-in-all, a good read. It's nice to get back to my West Virginia roots. There's far more quality writing sourced to our state than people realize.