Who Were the Early Israelities and Where Did They Come From?

For someone who is not a Middle East archaelogist, this book could potentially be overwhelming: The synthesis in the last few chapters reads faster than most pages in the early part of the book.

William Dever speaks to the question that is the title of the book from an objective point of view, truly mapping the common ground between the Bible and the archaelogy of the early-Israelite periods in the region. Anyone looking to fully prove or disprove the Bible probably should not look to this book–this book offers the scholarly opinion with as little agenda as is possible given the subject matter involved.

Harvard Business Review on Managing Your Career

Picked up in the airport while waiting for my flight, this book is geared toward the mid-level manager/executive–but the ideas are not hard to stretch to applications for even the everyday employee. At the beginning of each article is an executive summary.

There are eight articles in this book:

• "Reawakening Your Passion for Work" – Listening to a calling, taking time out, and general examination of where you are and where you want to be.
• "Goodbye Career, Hello Success" – Sometimes a successful career is not a conventional career.
• "The Right Way to Be Fired" – How to avoid self-destructive behavior and manage the circumstances of being fired.
• "Managing Oneself" – Knowing oneself, strengths, weaknesses, values, work and communication methods for more effective performance and teamwork.
• "A Second Career: The Possible Dream" – Knowing what path and under what circumstances to follow that new path.
• "Five Strategies of Successful Part-Time Work" – Establishing boundaries, communicating your value, and managing expectations when voluntarily moving to a part-time role.
• "Managing Your Boss" – A foreign concept at the original writing of the topic, this article is on communicating with your boss–in the right way.
• "A Survival Guide for Leaders" – Leading adaptive change, and the pitfalls therein.