April Monthly Challenge: Earn Your Bookworm Badge!
April's monthly challenge is underway! This month, we are asking YOU what your favorite book of all time is. Feel free to also share a quote or passage from your favorite work of prose. You can also add a professional development and/or personal development book along with your favorite work of literature. Leave your favorites in the comments below!
Comments
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? CB's pick: This is tough! There are so many great books out there. I remember being blown away by the first chapters of “The Stand” and “The Strain." I think my favorite book though would have to be Mario Puzo's “The Godfather.”
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@Crystal Bruce - John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
“You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff.”
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@Crystal Bruce, it's impossible to choose just one, but the first one that popped in my head was To Kill A Mockinbird by Harper Lee. I first read it in junior high and have reread it many times over the years.
For personal development, I'd pick Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Her insights helped me work in an environment filled with a lot of extraverts and see the value introverts can bring.
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@Crystal Bruce Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale opened my eyes to the implications of technological “improvements” in the financial system and how quickly society could deteriorate with the actions of a few key people. It got me to appreciate the checks and balances we strive to maintain in our country.
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@Crystal Bruce - I don't have a favorite. But I am always reading. I will mention the series I am reading on the recommendation of my 14 year old daughter, Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi . I love Young Adult Fiction.
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@Crystal Bruce The first book that always comes to mind when someone asks me this question is Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. I haven't read it since I was a kid but the feeling it left me with is unforgettable.
“We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.”
― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston SeagullBonus - this one is even easier - PD Book Fundraising with The Raiser’s Edge: A Non-Technical Guide by Bill Connors! Lately, most of my PD comes from YouTube
and webinars.4 -
@Crystal Bruce I read books all the time so it's hard to choose a favorite. I will say my favorite series is the In Death series by J.D. Robb. There are currently 58 books in the series and I've read every one of them.
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@Crystal Bruce I am a huge sci-fi/fantasy buff, so the Harry Potter series, the Song of Ice & Fire (Game of Thrones) series and Wheel of Time (still working through those) are my tops. My favorite line is “Not Today” - IYKYK!
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@Crystal Bruce - too tough to choose just one!
If I had to choose a book based solely on the number of times I've read and re-read it I'd probably choose It by Stephen King.
Favorite kid's book - The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
Favorite professional development - Asking by Jerry Panas “Keep in mind that men and women don’t want to give money away. They want to invest in great causes, in bold and exciting dreams.”
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@Crystal Bruce - there are so many, but one I remember from childhood and still love to reread is Mrs Mike by Benedict & Nancy Freeman, oh and the Anne of Green Gables book series.
For personal development I like to read ‘The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember’ by Fred Rogers. It helps remind me what is important in life.
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@Crystal Bruce - my new favorite is Killers of the Flower Moon. I've read it 3 times and learn something new each time. I've read other books by the same author and love them all!
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@Crystal Bruce Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman! It's been made into an amazing Amazon series, as well.
"The really important thing to be was yourself, just as hard as you could.” - Good Omens
There are many other books (I have quite a collection, after all), but that one stands out above the rest. 2nd would be Stephen King's The Stand.
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@Amy Hentschke
My favorite book read as a child is “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell. It was in the Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, Bernard Unti calls Black Beauty "the most influential anti-cruelty novel of all time".1 -
@Crystal Bruce Love reading and it's hard to pick just one, but growing up it was The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. For professional development - Bill Connor's book Fundraising with The Raiser's Edge is awesome and I find a lot of great info via AASP. ?
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@Crystal Bruce Any Malcolm Gladwell Book I can go and grab. Right now I have a bit of a collection of his books, so it is hard to choose just one. The one I most love is David and Goliath. It is an attempt to look more closely how our society deals with complete paradoxes of winners and loser, strong and weak. One thing that resonated with me is the theme on the book where Gladwell argues that disadvantages can give us advantages. Who would have thought that a disability like dyslexia could actually make people more successful? With reasoning reminiscent of the Daredevil comic books, he illustrates how the absence of one ability—reading—can lead people to develop other abilities in areas like creative problem solving, acting, listening, and rule-bending.
For PD, I have Excellence in Fundraising in Canada by Guy Mallabone volume 1 and 2. I have it on my shelf at work together with Bill Connors book and another book I got from AFP seminar for Fundraising Analytics. These are my resource guide for the fundamentals in working in the non profit sector through the years.
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@Crystal Bruce
so many books so little time… my immediate instinct is from youth “Charlotte's Web”.Professionally I would have to say Bill Connor's “Fundraising with the Raiser's Edge…”
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April's monthly challenge is underway! This month, we are asking YOU what your favorite book of all time is. Feel free to also share a quote or passage from your favorite work of prose. You can earn 200 bonus points if you add a professional development and/or personal development book along with your favorite work of literature. Leave your favorites in the comments below!
I can't choose a favorite book! That said - I would say the book (series) that has had the greatest impact on my day-to-day life (and decorating) is Harry Potter. #Ravenclaw
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@Crystal Bruce - The Art of Racing in the Rain
(though I also 1000% agree with the Harry Potter comment)
Self help: Girl Seeks Bliss - short, inspiring read
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@Crystal Bruce
My favorite book is The Three Body Problem Trilogy. Read it years ago and have reread it several times. I haven't gotten around to watching the Netflix version.2 -
@Crystal Bruce I would pick the Lord of the RIngs trilogy by Tolkien.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”For professional development, New Power by Jeremy Heimans who was a BBCON speaker.
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@Crystal Bruce - Great Question. Thanks.
My favorite book is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Passage from the book:
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
Personal and Professional development, I am reading Feeding the Soul Book: Feeding the Soul (Because It's My Business): Finding Our Way to Joy, Love, and Freedom by Tabitha Brown.
And looking forward to reading It's About Time by Valorie Burton.
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@Crystal Bruce The Strain book trilogy by Guillermo del Toro was so good. It's one of my favorites.
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@Crystal Bruce I read a lot so I have too many to chose from. I agree with your post of The Strain book trilogy from Guillermo Del Toro. I also enjoyed The Host by Stephenie Meyer. But I also love the classics from Jane Austen and Bronte sisters.
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@Crystal Bruce
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. “Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so”. ?
And for professional development Hope for Animals and Their World by Jane Goodall. Working in Conservation, it can be quite disheartening with what is going on in the world, but Jane brings hope to the important work my NFP does. ??6 -
@Crystal Bruce I don't really have one favourite of all time but the one that sprang to mind is Anathem by Neal Stephenson, amazing science fiction that's also a coming-of-age story (I love those) - it's very long but I didn't want it to end. It led me to reading most of his other books but none of them is as good as that one.
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@Crystal Bruce I don't have one favorite book, but inspired by those sharing childhood favorites I loved Matt Christopher books and the one that comes to mind is Too Hot To Handle which is a book about baseball. As someone who loves sports and was obsessed with them as a kid I could read his books over and over.
Professionally, A Spirituality of Fundraising by Henri Nouwen is a short book and has great reminders about the importance of our work and how to think about “prospects”. Yes, he writes from a Christian perspective and to churches, but I think it works for any fundraising effort.
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@Liz Hackett One of my favorites. If you've done 6 impossible things this morning….
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@Crystal Bruce Favourite book of all time - my Bible. Favourite quote today: “Be still, and know that I am God.” - Psalms 46:10
Fav professional development book, right now, is 'Change your Questions, Change Your Life" by Marilee Adams.2 -
Oh gosh, I love/hate this question!
I'm seeing so many good answers - Wheel of Time (series), Harry Potter (series), I'd like to include the Metamorphosis and Project Hail Mary!
I'm mostly a fiction reader and never really got into “self-help” but I look forward to trying some of the suggestions - Hope for Animals and Their World (thanks Liz!) and The World According to Mister Rogers (thanks Amy!) I think there is much to be learned from those! (-:
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I'm seeing some “old friends” in this list. I've read some of these series twice, and some more often (Hitchhiker's Guide, TLOR).
I think some of my favorites are by Sir Terry Pratchett. His Discworld series are sometimes a bit irreverent. Stories of The Watch, Tiffany Aching, and Granny Weatherwax are some of my favorites.
“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!I think I would like to read “The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember”
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