Inevitably, I'll come across a bookstore, an oasis of intellectual fun in a dull desert of glitzy clothing, fragrance and electronics stores. But if I'm not careful, this place could bring my shopping sprint to a dead stop. I can spend hours there, browsing racks of books I know I'll never have time to read; sipping tea, coffee and cocoa; leafing through colorful racks of magazines ... boy, these are some great pictures, maybe I should subscribe to ...
Snap. Back to reality. If you're in the same fix I am, you won't have time for that.
So, here are some holiday book ideas to keep you on-track as you finish up your shopping. Some of the books are about journalism, and some aren't. But each one was read in the past year by someone here at Poynter. And each one taught him or her something about writing, reporting or another aspect of this wonderful craft we call journalism.
We know, of course, that there are a lot more great books out there. That's why we're hoping you'll add to this list. In the comments section at the end of this piece, give us -- and your colleagues -- a suggestion or two of your own.
Happy holidays!
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone 
If you want to understand how we got to today's Iraq, you need to step back to 2003, with the then-Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post. In Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Chandrasekaran leads you, post-liberation, through the streets of the real Baghdad and then into the Green Zone. There, isolated from the rest of Iraq, a "little America" is constructed for U.S. officials and advisors. Life is relatively good there. And nowhere else. You'll witness, in painful and painstaking detail, the bad decisions, missed opportunities and political mindset that harmed Iraqis, American soldiers and the chances for a good outcome after the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Chandrasekaran takes a reporter's measured approach to sharing what he witnessed and researched. His low-key tone makes the facts he reveals all the more disturbing. Because he doesn't shout, you want to. I interviewed the author -- whom I have come to know through work I have done for the Post -- for Poynter Online, after his book was named a finalist for a National Book Award.By purchasing any of the books listed on this page, Poynter gets a small cut as an Amazon affiliate.
-- Jill Geisler, Leadership & Management Faculty
The Sand Cafe
New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar told NPR that, before heading to a new country on assignment, he tries to get a feel for the place by reading a novel set in the country. I'm not sure how much Saudi Arabia has changed since the first Gulf War. But if you're headed that way any time soon -- or if you're interested in the relationship between the media and the military as it played out back then -- you'll find The Sand Cafe a worthwhile read. Not quite Evelyn Waugh or Scoop, but still an entertaining read. For that next long plane ride, even if your boarding pass indicates a destination short of Dharan or Riyadh.
-- Bill Mitchell, Poynter Online Editor
A Private History of Awe
I don't know for certain, but I think awe might be one of the most important characteristics of a good journalist. In this highly personal narrative, Sanders describes awe as a combination of wonder and fear, and illustrates it with his own experiences -- resting in the arms of his father, for instance, and watching a bolt of lightning split a massive oak. A Private History of Awe is an argument for cultivating the clear vision that only the very young and the very old can acheive naturally. For the rest of us, it is harder. But books like this one can help.
-- Pat Walters, Naughton Fellow
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
I couldn't put this book down. It has two plot lines that join at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. One tells the story of Daniel Burnham, Chicago's leading architect of the time, who led the fair's construction. This contrasts with the story of the first nationally known psychopath/serial killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes, who preys on young women drawn to Chicago because of the fair and the city's new job opportunities. I found The Devil in the White City to be a great nonfiction example of how to weave two different stories -- which ultimately merge into one. Stopping one story to pick up the other with the chapter breaks built the suspense that kept me turning the pages.
-- Leann Frola, Naughton Fellow
Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
I bought this book on the recommendation of Liz Szabo, USA Today's excellent medical reporter, who helped teach Poynter's seminar last fall on covering cancer. Liz was right about the book. Complications is a compelling collection of first-person stories and engaging observations by a Harvard-educated surgical resident who writes really well. Atul Gawande talks about his profession the way I wish all doctors would: clearly, honestly, without presumption and with respect for the rest of us who don't practice medicine. In the first few pages, I found lots of relevance not only to my own experiences with health care, but to my own work in leadership and management training. Everybody deals with doctors and hospitals at some point. This book isn't, by any means, a feel-good look at their world, but it makes me feel a little better about my own education as consumer of medical services. It's also just good reading.
-- Scott Libin, Leadership & Management Faculty
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
It's the story of the role played by reporters and by Southern newspapers during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 70s. The Race Beat makes it clear that while there were several journalistic heroes then, there also were many, many Southern papers that deliberately ignored the violence and brutality to black people that occurred during segregation, and/or were late deciding to take the high ground, both in the news columns and on the editorial pages.
-- Bob Haiman, President Emeritus
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management
These noted Stanford professors take a myth-buster approach to some popular management ideas. They examine theories on strategy, compensation, motivation, change management, even work-life balance, to determine which ones have any evidence to back up their effectiveness. I think Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense is particularly important reading for the people who manage journalists. If you expect your journalists to exercise skepticism and critical thinking in their work, you owe them the same when adopting a management theory or practice. Pfeffer and Sutton are the authors of another strong book, The Knowing-Doing Gap
-- Jill Geisler, Leadership & Management Faculty
Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change
I have collected a small library of books on the subject of change, since it is high on the list of newsroom managers' challenges these days. Making Sense of Change Management is like a survey course on change. It is not about slogans, parables or anecdotes. It's about research into individual, team, organizational and cultural change. It explores the leader's role in change. It allows a reader to choose from among a variety of change models to see which is most applicable to his or her situation. I find this book valuable because it sources every theory it presents -- from the psychology to the politics of change management. The book may strike you as a bit academic, but the authors are experienced consultants to organizations and have dealt with change first hand.
-- Jill Geisler, Leadership & Management Faculty
/ By Mark MaddenIt was written in 1947, but Raymond Queneau's Exercices de style has echoes for storytellers today. It's the same scene -- the narrator witnesses a man on a bus fighting with another passenger, and later sees the same man getting advice about the buttons on his coat in a different part of town -- told 99 different ways. More than half a century later, cartoonist Matt Madden pays homage to Queneau with his 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. Each "way" is a retelling of the same story -- and this time, it's Madden as the main character. He's working, gets up from his laptop and heads for the fridge. His girlfriend asks him what time it is. "1:15," he says, and promptly forgets what he went to the fridge for. Simple enough. But his storytelling ranges from the straightforward to the historical. A lot of the examples are tongue-in-cheek, for sure, but it underscores the idea that there are millions of ways to tell a single story. And it's a nice creativity jog when you're aching for some inspiration. And a good challenge to try yourself. (Entrants to a Third Coast International Audio Festival contest did.) So, it's not technically a journalism book, but aren't all journalists really storytellers anyway?
-- Meg Martin, Poynter Online Associate EditorAn Unfinished Season: A Novel
/ By Ward JustI'm kicking myself for not reading more of Ward Just's writing over the years. Long ago, I read his accounts of the war in Vietnam as I tried to understand what I lived through both here in the states and during my time as a soldier in Vietnam. Regrettably, I didn't keep reading through his string of more than a dozen novels. Now, I'm making up for lost time.
In the last year, I've finished one of Ward Just's recent books, and I'm part way through one of his classics.
An Unfinished Season takes us into the heart of the Midwest in the 1950s. It's a finely crafted novel about two generations of a family in Chicago. It's about work, about relationships, about courage, about morality. It's a novel that delves into power and corruption. The story explores love and despair and death. It's a darn good read because it's such a well-written novel and a well-executed story. There is a nice journalism connection since the novel's narrator, young Wils Ravan, is learning the ropes as an apprentice at a Chicago tabloid paper. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.
And, if you are intrigued by the journalism connection in that novel, you'll find it even more fascinating in one of Ward Just's older works. A Family Trust: A Novel
is set in a small town an hour or so from Chicago. It's a story of a family-owned newspaper that plays a heavy-handed role in just about everything that goes on in Dement, Ill., in the 1950s and 60s. It's about the passing of the baton from one generation to another and about the internal battles that play out within the family. While a novel, the book is a realistic and riveting tale of the struggles and demise of the family-owned newspaper, a common story across the American landscape in the last half century. I'm only about halfway through this novel, and I'm already thinking about which Ward Just book I'll grab next. I like his writing. I like his stories.-- Bob Steele, Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values
Outrage, Passion, and Uncommon Sense: How Editorial Writers Have Taken On and Helped Shape the Great American Issues of the Past 150 Years
/ By Michael Gartner Recently I had the pleasure to read Michael Gartner's new book, Outrage, Passion, and Uncommon Sense: How Editorial Writers Have Taken On and Helped Shape the Great American Issues of the Past 150 Years.
Gartner and the Newseum have published a fascinating look at how editorial writers have taken on great issues during the past century and a half. In addition to editorial topics such as war, politics, civil rights and many others, there is a section devoted to Christmas. You will be reminded that The (New York) Sun's editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is still as magic as the day Francis Church wrote it in 1897.
I've always agreed with the idea that journalism is the first rough draft of history. This important and beautifully illustrated book reminds us how especially true that is on the editorial page.
-- David Shedden, Eugene Patterson Library Director
