Book Review Mondays

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The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy
by Jon Gordon

Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD.

In this 192-page book, Gordon writes an easy-to-read parable that is engaging, entertaining, and self-reflective. The question he addresses is, what choices are necessary in your life to create and maintain energy? Gordon’s story is structured around 10 easy-to-remember rules: 1) You're the driver of your bus, 2) Desire, vision, and focus move your bus in the right direction, 3) Fuel your ride with positive energy (negative energy is friction), 4) Invite people on your bus and share your vision for the road ahead, 5) Don't waste your energy on those who don't get on your bus, 6) Post a sign that says no energy vampires allowed on your bus (get rid of the malcontents), 7) Enthusiasm attracts more passengers and energizes them for the ride, 8) Love your passengers by giving them your time, listening, recognition, service - work to bring out the best in them, 9) Drive with purpose, 10) Have fun and enjoy the ride. These are good, simple, basic rules that apply to work, life, and family. Gordon’s is a step-by- step method, that is fast paced, easy to read, and gets right to the point. Once you get on the energy bus, you will want others to join the ride.

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How Wikipedia works, and how you can be a part of it
by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates

Book Review by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD.

The back cover of this 507-page book says that by reading the book, you will learn to: 1) Find information and evaluate the quality and reliability of articles, 2) Contribute to existing articles by copyediting, writing new material, and fact-checking, 3) Add new articles that conform to Wikipedia's guidelines and best practices-so that your hard work won't be deleted, 4) Communicate with other Wikipedians through Talk pages, discussion forums, direct messaging, and more, 5) Understand Wikipedia's policies and procedures and how they're created and enforced, 6) Resolve content disputes and deal with vandals and other malicious editors. The authors do not disappoint. It is all there in an easy-to-read (sometimes technical, although the authors warn you in advance of those sections), well-written, and detailed analysis. As a constant and active user of Wikipedia, (as a researcher, to answer specific questions that come up in conversations, and out of curiosity alone), I was thoroughly impressed and informed. This book could as easily have been called Wikipedia for Dummies. As an active writer, one chapter I found interesting was Chapter 6: Good Writing and Research. If you are an aspiring writer, you are currently involved in writing projects, or you have been a writer in the past and want to begin again, the advice, direction, and encouragement the authors provide in this 37-pages is spot-on — priceless, accurate, and well presented. Yes, this is a big book, and it offers you far more than you will ever need or use (It reminds me of the cliche, “everything you ever wanted to know about Wikipedia and more....”), but with all its examples, illustrations, explanations, informative inserts, suggested further readings (on the Internet with specific URLs), and chapter summaries, this is a wonderful, complete, and accurate reference book that you will want as a permanent part of your at-home library.

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Through our reading, researching, and writing, And Then Some Publishing (and our extended family of readers) mine volumes of books representing a wide variety of tastes. We use the books in our writing, test and try suggested techniques, and we read for enjoyment as well. We wouldn't spend the time reviewing the books if we didn't get something out of it. Read more reviews on other fantastic books at our BookWorksRules.com website.