Do you really listen to those around you? Family, friends, employers, employees, clients, acquaintances, bartenders, would you say you actually know how to and can really listen to them? I’d say that theoretically, a lot of us know how to. Everyone who had a few college classes talking about active listening, please raise your hand now! But I think we phase out our knowledge, the very same way as we tune out commercials, product placements in movies, people we’re not interested in, things that bother us. And I also believe we sometimes overlook and downright forget the benefits of opening our mind and souls to those around us by listening.

It took reading a great book, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Dr. Mark Goulston – to remember the benefits of listening, the techniques and the investment it takes to make it all work. I know what some of you would say! All shrinks think they know how to listen and help you, but what does it have to do with business? I for one know for sure you can pretty much find valid business advice almost anywhere, so a psychiatrist that gets hired by businesses to get them to work better sounds like a sweet deal to me.

Just Listen has got it all, explanations, how it all works scenarios, tips, tricks and you can take it all, learn it and apply it in both your business and your personal life. Reading the book will make you a more effective listener, that meaning you’d also be a more effective communicator, problem solver and basically you’ll lead a happier life. As an added benefit, it will also help you rid yourself of all the toxic people in your life.

What most captured me while reading this book was the wide range of applicability in business: sales, negotiations, motivating employees, getting through to unresponsive clients, getting audiences on your side, getting noticed by powerful people or by the trend setters in your field, it all can be eased into by listening first and then knowing what and when to say it. Because you see, knowing how to listen is one thing, knowing what response would be best at a certain time, that’s something else and mixing the two skills can be a little tricky.

Dr. Goulston is great at explaining why things happen in a certain way in a language that’s easy to relate to for those of us lacking proper medical training (and who weren’t listening during a few anatomy lessons). While the book is divided in a way that allows you to skip to the  juicy recipes and overlook the explanatory part, I advise you to go through all of it. It will make up for a complete, wonderful experience.

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

I’m extremely happy to welcome you to the first Monday Reading Roundup after our big move that kept me quiet for longer than I wanted . So without any other service interruption, here’s my list for today.

Have you always wanted to know what the secret formula to a successful business is? Your search has ended: Cath Lawson’s just made it public knowledge.

While so many out there have proclaimed print newspapers dead and burried, Shel Holtz has identified 10 changes that could save them.

If you have a site or a blog or both, you monitor your traffic. And admit it, higher numbers make you happier. But are you also mislead by traffic and driven to monitor the wrong metric? Dawud Miracle warns us against being tricked by the wrong numbers.

Ian Lurie is at it again and brings you a fresh and funny lesson on internet marketing. It’s about big crowds and how they don’t always have the smart solution.

We’ve all made mistakes. In business, these mistakes cost us our customers’/clients’ trust. Liz Strauss described the kind of apologies that help rebuild this lost trust.

In the end, I’ll spice up this weeks edition with Karen Swim’s reading recommendations. It’s a list of 5 wonderful blogs that I’m currently exploring (except the first one, that’s already in my reader).

Don’t forget to add your own suggestions to the comment box! See you all next week!

Kurt Vonnegut‘s novel Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988), is the story of an Abstract Expressionist painter searching for his soul. The lack of soul is the missing ingredient of his paintings and the search for it is not a willing one. It is just one man’s life taking him from the USA to Europe and back, in both times of war and peace.

The resemblance to the fairy tale of Bluebeard is not very strong. In his old age, Rabo Karabekian has become the guard of a significant Abstract Expressionist paintings collection that he shows to visitors from all over the world. His old studio, placed in a potato barn, is locked and he tells everyone it will only be opened after his death.

Rabo Karabekian’s is an interesting story, combining his Armenian roots and tales of old and never forgiven deceits, with art, love, the war and best friends who sometimes kill themselves or go crazy. Although he doesn’t give that impression, he is a devious character who has plotted a whole plan to get his sons who hate him to change their last name back to Karabekian.

A light yet complex read, Bluebeard is a book you should definitely put on your summer reading list.

I had seen Haruki Murakami novels of book store shelves years before I bought my first. Quite a few of my friends had read one or more and warmly recommended his works. So I finally bought one of his novels a few months back. The title simply took me by surprise: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. An interesting combination of words as Joanna Young mentioned on Twitter. And you can’t imagine what a special sound it has in Romanian!

This is the story of two very different worlds: the first one, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, is what the world we know is supposed to be: modern Tokyo ruled by a war over information. Its System governs everything and sends out its Computecs (human data processor/encryption systems whose unique encryption key is their mind) in search for fresh information, while the Semiotecs, who are mostly fallen Computecs are trying to steal data from them. Incredible research and modern technology mixed with underground, human eating creatures of extraordinary and terrifying beliefs, the INKlinkgs.

The second world, the End of the World, is actually a city surrounded by a dark wall, where everyone has their given place and follow strict rules. Unicorns come inside the city every day and have to leave it at night. No one can leave the city and once you arrive there, you are separated from your shadow. The shadow dies and once it’s dead, you lose your soul. Every rule seems normal to the inhabitants, no one doubts them or even things of changing them.

Haruki Murakami creates two amazing worlds and takes readers by surprise with the twisted yet clear plot, the complex possibilities and the simple life choices characters make. I’d tell you more of this troubling book, but I’m afraid I’d allow too many important details to be guessed, when discovering them page after page is much more entertaining. If you come across this book, you should definitely read it and let me know what you’ve thought of it.

Disclaimer: I haven’t given up on the initial challenge, but as my glasses are broken and it takes three weeks to get new ones, each book might take longer than a week

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome everyone! This week’s edition of our Monday Reading Roundup if significantly affected by the holiday breeze. Meaning it’s a combination of new stuff, new finds, humor, crazy news and interesting articles. Hope you enjoy it as much as you enjoyed previous ones.

First of all, I have to tell you all that Alex of Blogsessive has released a free WordPress theme called Simple Balance that you can download and use on your blog. It looks amazing, so consider it in your blog redesign plans.

I’ve also find an extremely cool site on tea, Ya-Ya’s Tea Bord. As I know a few of my readers are tea lovers, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Speaking of crazy news, Geeks Are Sexy reported that a teen tried to sell his vote on eBay. When the police came knocking on his door, he’s excuse was it had all been a joke. Seems like everything is up for sale on eBay these days

Jonathan Fields has brought an interesting question to my (and your) attention: are smartphones actually making us dumber? It appears they are. I for one, if deprived of my phone, would be unable to contact any of my relatives or close friends.

Now that you’ve relaxed, had fun and sighed at others’ craziness, it’s time to relax. A guest post on Blissful Travel on the Thai island of Lipe. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be there than in the office

Matt Jones of Blogging Fingers states it’s possible to make more money by blogging less. And he has also done a terrific job at explaining us how to achieve such a goal.

And instead of conclusions, I give you John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing explaining how cheap gas makes us lazier and how the rise in gas price comes with more physical exercises.

I hope you’ve had fun reading these fine articles and blogs. See you all next week for another round of summery readings.

Remember yesterday’s challenge? Well, this is the first review I’m publishing, with high hopes of turning this intro a weekly habit.

On Beauty is the type of book that you start reading, just to get a feel of it, and wake up 100 pages later. It intrigues you, it saddens you to tears, it makes you smile, it makes you laugh, it makes you angry. The states characters are in are described in such detail their imaginary feelings are passed on to you.

It’s a story of a half white, half black family and the world they live in, a small town built around a university – Wellington. The personal tragedies of each member of the family are interlinked with those of their friends, enemies and of plain strangers.

Political debates, family problems, art, culture, drugs, sordid affairs, theft and love, all are part of this book’s world. And everything seems to be treated in pairs of opposites: the intellectuals and those less interested in academic debate; those entitled to an education, but who lack talent, and those who have the talent but lack the right or means to an education; the beautiful and the less good looking, the wifes and the mistresses; the popular and the hated.

Zadie Smith‘s book will take you from the cultural issues of a US small town, to the political hassles of Haiti, and to the poor neighborhoods of London. It will make you think of the human condition, of what big messes we can make at times, of how easy it is to hurt people or to make them happy, of how fragile lies and lives are.

Some passages of the book are so common, they are predictable, but they are described in a way that does not bore you. It all seems so natural, so human, a part of our souls that we cannot reject.

My favorite character is Kiki Belsey, the black wife of a university professor forced to live in a world where the only black people are those she hires to clean her house, mother of three, each child with their difficult problems. An extremely strong woman, with an incredible will and sense for what’s right. An amazing friends that we’d all want around.

If anyone has read the book, I’d appreciate your thoughts on it. If you haven’t, consider this on your list of book recommendations.

Thank you and see you all next week,
Alina

Last week, while browsing the blogosphere, I found an interesting post on a very catchy challenge, at least for me. Reading one book every week. That would be 50 to 100 pages per day. Unfortunately I can’t share the post, as copy-pasting the link into an unsaved notepad and then having Vista crash and restart wasn’t such a great combination

But the challenge remained in the corner of my mind and still seems like a great idea. I have been trying to read more in the past two years with temporary results only, so a new impulse does not hurt. But just reading doesn’t just cut it for me. I got to thinking and realized that on Words of a Borken Mirror, Mondays are for reading recommendations. So I book review would work well with my Monday Roundup.

So starting tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about the book I’ve just finished each Monday afternoon. If you like the challenge, I’d love to share it with you! You can post your own reviews on your blogs or just tell us about what you have been reading in the comment box. What do you say, are you in?

See you on Monday,

Alina

P.S. If anyone has read the post I am referring to, please share the link, I’d love to give the author proper credit. Thanks!

UPDATE!

I have identified the original source of the writing challenge: Put Things Off

Joanna and Martin, thank you for your help!