Five Books I'm Reading to Close-Out 2015 and Welcome 2016
I can’t believe we’re already at the end of 2015. This year seems like it literally flew by and as I’m reflecting on the good and bad of the year, I’m also preparing for 2016. Part of that preparation includes thinking about the books I want to read that will help me reach my goals. So, I thought I’d share those for Mamademic Monday this week in case people want to read along with me.
This post contains affiliate links. Your purchase through these links helps run the site.
There are so many books on my reading list for 2016, including several I purchased in previous years, but haven’t read. So, I’m going to start with the number one book I still need to finish from the past and then share the four new ones on my list.
Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation
by Sonja Foss and William Waters
Amazon Blurb: “Destination Dissertation is a handbook that helps students successfully develop and complete their dissertations. It uses travel as a metaphor framing the process as an exciting trip of 29 steps that can be completed in less than nine months.”
This book was a suggestion from a very good friend a few years ago, but I never made the time to read it in its entirety. Now is definitely that time.
The next four books are all recent recommendations that will help me with several different personal goals for 2016.
Year of YES: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person
by Shonda Rhimes
Amazon Blurb: “This poignant, intimate, and hilarious memoir explores Shonda’s life before her Year of Yes—from her nerdy, book-loving childhood creating imaginary friends to her devotion to creating television characters who reflected the world she saw around her (like Cristina Yang, whose ultimate goal wasn’t marriage, and Cyrus Beene, who is a Republican and gay). And it chronicles her life after her Year of Yes had begun—when Shonda forced herself out of the house and onto the stage, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and giving the Dartmouth Commencement speech; when she learned to say yes to her health, yes to play and she stepped out of the shadows and into the sun; when she learned to explore, empower, applaud, and love her truest self. Yes”
by Karen Kelsky, Ph.D
Amazon Blurb: “Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration.
Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options.
Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers.’
by Crystal Paine
Amazon Blurb: “When it comes to finances, many of us feel strapped and stressed, buried under bills, worried about an uncertain future. Even if money is plentiful, we long for greater wisdom to manage it well.
In Money-Making Mom, finance and family blogger Crystal Paine shares real-life stories, practical tips, and hard-won wisdom from the failures and successes that have carved her family’s path to financial freedom.”
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey
Amazon Blurb: “Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. “Don’t even consider keeping up with the Joneses,” Ramsey declares in his typically candid style. “They’re broke!”
Can you guess the goals I’m working on in 2016 based on the books I’m reading? Leave your guesses in the comments and we’ll see who guessed correctly when I share my 2016 goals in a few days.
