September 8 is International Literacy Day, a day that has been recognized by UNESCO since 1965 and which is supported by the World Literacy Foundation. With them, we recognize that literacy is a fundamental human right. But it’s also a topic that may be closer to home than many of us may realize.
As we navigate the world, we rarely stop to think about literacy – the ability to read, write and interpret signs – and we take its contribution to our own lives for granted.
Read More
Recently, I spoke with Gail Monahan, a Books@Work participant, about her experience in our programs. Gail is a Senior Applications Engineer at Fairbanks Morse Engine, an Enpro Industries company. Fairbanks Morse Engine has been a valued Books@Work partner since we first began offering seminars in their Beloit, Wisconsin facility in late 2013. In our discussion, Gail emphasized that Books@Work provides a valuable opportunity explore new subjects and cultures, to get to know your colleagues on a different level and to see things from their perspectives.
Read More
Working in – or managing – a municipality has its own set of challenges. Local governments are made up of people from a variety of professions and backgrounds working together to maintain order and quality of life for the citizens of their city. They do so while working in separate departments at different locations, and with rarely any opportunity to meet face to face, much less hold an extended conversation.
For one municipality, Books@Work effectively helped city employees come together, providing opportunities to share perspectives and deeper communication – including listening.
Read More
In a recent piece for the Harvard Business Review, Pat Wadors, Senior Vice President of Global Talent Organization at LinkedIn, argues that storytelling is key to belonging at work. Learn more about the case she makes for belonging. We also include stories on the key to listening well, employee-led learning, a poet-turned CEO, hope and living wisely.
Read More
Although Katherine Mansfield spent most of her adult life living in London and traveling continental Europe, many of her short stories evoke the New Zealand of her childhood. A modernist writer, Mansfield was a friend of D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Her short story, “The Garden Party,” influenced Woolf’s masterpiece, Mrs. Dalloway.
Read More
Should companies help their employees learn? A recent article for the Harvard Business Review argues for lifelong learning in the workplace and offers three tips for cultivating it. We have this, as well as essays on meaningful work, book deserts, storytelling and literary quizzes in our most recent Weekend Reading.
Read More
At Books@Work, we enjoy a great deal of exposure to wonderful books—and to the conversations and insights those books inspire.
In the spirit of summer reading, here are a few we and our participants have been enjoying recently. Why not try one and start a conversation yourself?
Read More
American author Willa Cather’s novels evoke the landscapes of the American west, from the plains of Nebraska to Colorado’s Mesa Verde, and they depict frontier life in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Though she is primarily known for longer works such as My Ántonia, O Pioneers, and The Song of the Lark, Cather began her career as a poet and writer of short stories, and published many of them throughout her life.
“On the Gulls’ Road” (1908) takes place at sea rather than in the American west. Nonetheless, Cather’s short story attends to landscape and seascape, as well as the relationships between people, in a manner similar to her better-known works.
Read More
The past few weeks have offered us a lot to think about, including essays on how supporting parents helps foster noncognitive skills in young children, what makes work meaningful, and the power of poetry and listening. We’ve also included an essay on LeBron James and Homeric epic and a few unusual facts about reading.
Read More
Last week, Karen Nestor wrote about her experience teaching in a Books@Work special program with Veterans living at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center Domiciliary. Karen’s was an hour-long program for the entire residency—but, in partnership with Ohio Humanities and several individual donors, Books@Work has been serving this community with weekly seminars over the past six months. Each week in this program, a group of Veterans came together with a professor to discuss a short story. Recently, I had the chance to speak with Professor Peter Haas about his experience guiding these discussions. Peter is an ordained rabbi and served as a chaplain in the United States Army before entering academe. He retired in the summer of 2016 from Case Western Reserve University, where he was professor of Religious Studies and former chair of his department. Here, Peter talks about the power of the short story and the moving discussions he was able to lead and take part in at the VA Domiciliary.
Read More