Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

If you liked the concepts in Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, this book goes further: evidence that we interact and react to create different brain chemistries based on social norms. I listened to the audio version several times while doing chores or working out.

With the advent of new measurement devices for brain patterns and brain chemistry, Goleman tells interesting stories about people knowing just the right moves to influence others. He opens with a story of a young Captain in Iraq defusing a tense situation with the local populace as his men approaced a mosque on a routine patrol. By having the men drop their rifles from the typical ready position and smile, the crowd seemed to sense they were not there to attack the mosque and the atmosphere changed dramatically.

I found myself recalling good managers I had known who seemed to have a knack for doing things that Goleman says can now be measured as having positive impacts with people. Like Emotional Intelligence, this is a discussion book, not a how-to book. I liked it and would revisit it a few years down the road.

This post done later, in Jan of 2010, though I read book last spring. Trying to get caught up again.

S is For Silence by Sue Grafton

Latest in Kinsey Milhone alphabet series…. I haven't read her for almost 10 years I think. I actually just found an old startup book journal from 2001 with the last two alphas I read, stopping somewhere around J I think. In this one, she does the complex, interwoven past/present plot exposition. Trying to solve a disappearance / potential murder of a woman in a small town. Seems that almost everyone could be a suspect, or have knowledge of what really happened at the time of the crime 30 years earlier. She weaves the current day detective work of series start P I Kinsey Milhone with intermittent chapters through the time machine back to the few days prior to the disappearance. Each flashback is from the point of view of a different character who could potentially have a motive and the opportunity to either murder the victim, or run off with her. Like a couple Agatha Christie novels, so many people seem likely that you start to wonder if several of them had a hand in it. As it turns out, several folks were quiet because they were covering up other deep, dark problems. If you like this series, or the concept of a pretty good female detective story, the alpha books from Grafton are okay. This one is better than the average of her work. Ultimately, an escape for the weekend, or airplane read.

A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald

One of the less well crafted of the Travis McGee books. I am a fan of John D MacDonald, and have read and reread the Travis McGee series many times. I never tire of the character and just enjoy the craft of this author. The stories seem almost timeless. You have to work hard to find references that allow you to peg the time setting. This one, he clearly was playing with where to come into the story. "In media res" is partly true, but things keep moving back and forth as information is uncovered. Travis and Meyer are concerned about Mary Broll when her husband comes by and asks Travis to give her a message after she had disappeared for three months. Seems Harry, the Husband, thought she would run to Travis. No one "hires" Travis, he just gets the niggling feeling that she would have gotten in touch and heads to Granada, where she supposedly went, to confirm that she is okay. The true villain in this piece pops up fairly late in the game, then turns out to be one of the most chilling psychotics of the whole series. If written in the 90s we would have thought JDM was trying to be more "edgy". He uses some inconceivable coincidences to get Travis through the steps to a solution, almost like he had a deadline and had to finish up. Not his best, but the worst of the Travis McGee Series is better than almost any other author's best work.