How often do you think about reading for pleasure?
“Reading is a joy, a desperately needed escape — I don’t read to learn, I read to read”.
Christian Bauman
There is an ocean of descriptions and observations about reading, and the pleasure in reading. Nora Epheon wrote “Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real”.
Our team is diverse, unique to each person. What we are reading for pleasure reflects something of their continuing journey of life-long learning.
Stephanie Salazar – Coach & Facilitator
Finding Me
Viola Davis
Spring, to me, is all about emergence and Viola Davis’ memoir ‘Finding Me’ is just that. Viola reflects deeply on living in poverty, learns to embrace the power of her blackness and shares her journey towards reconciling with her eight-year-old self. She reflects on how one principal and one teacher changed the trajectory of her life. I feel grateful and hopeful as I take in more and more of Viola’s story. I also feel inspired to let go of my fears and share my authentic self with the world
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers”.
Charles W. Eliot
Rochelle Borton – Founder and Managing Director
Bad Sex – Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution
Nona Willis Aronowitz
It is about the history of feminism, gender, and sexuality – and is quite simply opening my eyes and a page turner. It is part memoir, part history lesson and a frank criticism of our social structures and “norms” especially when it comes to sex, sexual freedom, desire, and crippling expectations of what we “should” be doing. It is supposed to be an attempt at making sense of feminism failings and how honest reflection of self might be able to change the way we look at life and relationships.
“Think before you speak. Read before you think”.
Fran Lebowitz
Wil Constable – Consultant
Antifragile
Nassim Taleb
My spring reading has begun with ‘Antifragile’ written by Nassim Taleb. This book explores the ‘Black Swan’ series by the same author. These titles seek to explain everything we know about what we don’t know. Taleb argued that antifragile systems are designed to improve with life stress and changes due to stress. The book includes some practical antifragile strategies that can be applied at a personal and system level to thrive because of stressors, volatility, faults, attacks, and failures.
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it”.
Oscar Wilde
Jason Borton – Coach
The Good Cop
Justine Ford
This book showcases the incredible career of homicide detective Ron Iddles who had an amazing conviction rate of 99%. Ron was tough, inventive, and incorruptible as well as being stoic in the face of the senseless horror that played out in the Melbourne underworld. Ron applied his trade across more than 320 homicide cases, some of which are the most infamous in the nations’ history. This is an extraordinary inside story of a real crime crusader and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys true crime stories. It has also now been made into a major Foxtel series.
“Let us read and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world”.
Voltaire
Emerson L. da Silva – Schools Relationship Manager
You’re Not Listening
Kate Murphy
You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy, makes readers reflect on the ways we listen to others and if we are really listened to as well. Kate shares with us countless conversations she had with different individuals in various situations, and how listening poorly, selectively, or not at all limits our understanding of the world and deprives ourselves of becoming the best we can be.
“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.”
John Adams