Tom’s Comments (group member since May 23, 2016)

Tom’s comments from the NOVA Men's Book Group group.

@Frank, I just sent you a message.

How Democracies Die is the non-fiction selection for the February 2018 discussion.

The Feb 2018 discussion is scheduled for Sun, Feb 25, at 9 AM at Panera Bread in Merrifield, VA.

Godspeed, gents.

Gents,

As a reminder, we're meeting on Sun, Dec 17 at 9 AM at the Panera Bread in Merrifield to discuss I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad

For the first meeting of 2018 (January) - date and time TBD - we're slated to read some fiction.

Please indicate your preference by voting in the poll, which closes on Sunday, Dec 10:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Best,

Tom

Great to see those of us who made it out this morning to discuss Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

We selected I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad by Souad Mekhennet as our book for discussion next month.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Dec 17, 2017 at 9:00 AM at the Panera Bread in Merrifield, VA.

Lou,

I'm also sorry to hear about your accident and the already-sprained ankle.

You were missed today, and I hope you get well soon.

Tom

Seems like a list ready for a vote. Why not the Isaacson book on Franklin?

Hopefully there's not much "actual dialogue" in Genghis Khan.

I created two "shelves" where suggestions can be made in the future...

-Suggested Fiction
-Suggested Non-Fiction

Let me know if for some reason you can't "shelve" books there.

I suggested a few.

1984 - Orwell
Islands in the Stream - Hemingway

Thanks, all, for an enlightening and enlivened discussion today.

As usual, we meandered a bit, so here's the link to the McKinsey article I mentioned on the "future" of performance management (it mentions the research by Aguinis and colleagues on performance conforming to a power law and not a normal distribution):

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-func...

Something that appeared recently in the NYTimes that might be an interesting complement to The Way of Men:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/edu...

I realize I added quite a few and don't mean to make the poll onerous. It's fine if you select just a handful from my list - I'd be interested to read & discuss any of these books with you fine gentlemen!

@Dave - thanks for pointing out the ability to add books - very cool.

Some additional suggestions...some of these may have been suggested before...hoping it's okay to suggest again:

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future (Kevin Kelly)
The Way of Men (Jack Donovan)
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (Matt Ridley)
The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins)
Stumbling on Happiness (Daniel Gilbert)
On Human Nature (Edward O. Wilson)
Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (Stephen Cave)
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science (Atul Gawande)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (John Perkins)

Tom