299 sessions. 597 books. 25 years. – The First Friday Book Synopsis hits 25; with much, much more learning to come!
299 sessions.
597 books.
25 years. – The First Friday Book Synopsis hits 25; and much more to come!
On April 7, we will begin year 26 of preparing and delivering synopses of good, useful, best-selling business books.
We have met every month but one since April, 1998. (One month, an ice storm shut us down).
We have presented synopses of two books every month we have met except for one month, where only one book was presented. (This was our transition to Zoom for the pandemic, and I presented only one synopsis that first month).
So:
25 years; 299 meetings; 2 books every month, except for that one month with just one book = 597 books.
The list of books we have presented is really overwhelming. All of the big best-sellers are here. Books like:
Good to Great; Lean In; Mindset; Atomic Habits; Great by Choice; Outliers; Knowing Your Value; Extreme Ownership; Moneyball, The Big Short; Freakonomics; Blue Ocean Strategy; Rise of the Robots; Grit; Radical Candor; Factfulness; Invisible Women; True North; Chip War… …And so, so many more.
And we have presented books by so many well-known and respected authors, from:
Peter Drucker to Tom Peters to Thomas Friedman to Clayton Christensen to Jim Collins to Malcolm Gladwell to Daniel Pink to Daniel Kahneman to Kouzes and Posner to Sheryl Sandberg to Mika Brzezinski to Barbara Ehrenreich to David Allen to Ram Charan to John Kotter to Jocko Willink to Michael Lewis to Peter Senge to Kenneth Blanchard to Seth Godin to John Wooden to Phil Jackson to Marcus Buckingham to Susan Cain to Nassim Nicholas Taleb to Daniel Goleman to Stephen Covey and Steven Covey to Gary Hamel to Timothy Ferris to Katty Kay and Claire Shipman to Rosabeth Moss Kanter to Chip Heath and Dan Heath to Atul Gawande to Joe Nocera to Guy Kawasaki to Walter Isaacson to Charles Duhigg to Peter Diamandis to Simon Sinek to Marshall Goldsmith to General Stanley McChrystal to Adam Grant to Timothy Ferris to Kim Scott to Ryan Holiday to Ray Dalio to Brené Brown to Jim Mattis to Robert Iger to Tony Faddell to… well, you get the point.
These are a lot of good, influential business-book authors!
One regular participant recently told me that she has saved 187 of the synopsis handouts, and refers to them regularly.
Many have told me that they refer back to the synopsis handouts regularly.
And, plenty of times, those who have read the book have told me that they got more out of my synopses than they did from reading the books themselves.
I read the books, I present the books, and I refer back to my synopsis handouts constantly. And, I have learned so very much!
In other words, I feel like the First Friday Book Synopsis is THE Place, with THE approach, for an on-going, keep-you-current, business education.
My thanks to my former colleague, Karl Krayer, who presented one book each month until his stroke a few years back.
And my deepest thanks and gratitude to all the participants, who attend our events, learn, and help spread the word.
So many books… …so much learning!!!
And; we ain’t learned nothin’ yet! Many, many, many more books, and lessons, and takeaways await!
Happy 25th, I say!
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just a few of the books I have presented
Here are a few ways to purchase our past synopses. Each comes with two files; the pdf of the synopsis handout, plus the audio recording of the presentation of the synopsis.
I provide bundles of three/four synopses by category here: FOR THE LIFELONG LEARNER IN ALL OF US – Announcing The First Friday Book Synopsis Academy of Lifelong Learning.
You can always check out our most recent synopses by clicking here.
Purchase individual synopses by searching by book title by clicking here.
Or, purchase a subscription, and gain access to all of the synopsis by clicking here.
