Commuting is a slushy slog, half the people you know are fighting SAD, and between the polar vortex and weekly snowfall, we’re more than a little stir crazy. February is a terrible month for socializing, but it’s a perfect month for reading. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately:
Taking The Work Out of Networking: The Introvert’s Guide to Making Connections That Count, Karen Wickre
Besides being a 1) self-described introvert, Wickre is 2) a woman 3) over sixty 4) in tech. In an industry where being over forty can feel ancient, it might seem that those are four strikes against her. But Wickre has had a successful 30-year career at companies like Twitter and Google, and she claims to have done it all without ever working a room. Her main focus is on cultivating and maintaining meaningful one-on-one connections, something that introverts naturally excel at. She calls it “organic networking”: the networking you do when you don’t need anything.
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Rosenthal: I’m rereading this one, one of my favorites from last year, in anticipation of my March book club. Krouse Rosenthal died less than a year after its publication (you may remember her from her viral NYT article “You May Want to Marry My Husband”), so sections about life’s brevity feel especially heavy. Still, Krouse Rosenthal writes with such infectious goodwill, brimming with enthusiasm and love, that you soon forget that she’s gone—it feels as if she’s right there with you offering to bake you a pie or get matching tattoos (yes, she really went through with both of these). She celebrates the smallest moments, reminding us that the world is a magical, serendipitous place.
The interactive website enhances the reading experience, cataloging reader submissions: selfies, photos of rainbows, descriptions of “purple flower moments” (whatever the person is doing at a particular moment in time), plus readings of poems and musical accompaniments. I visited the site hoping it was still up, and happily, not only is it live, but you can still send submissions. There were several reader-submitted rainbows in Chicago in 2018 that I never noticed. Maybe I need to start paying more attention.