The Four Conversations, by Jeffrey Ford

The Four Conversations: Daily Communication that gets Results

In a busy and progressive work environment, conversations are key for keeping a forward momentum.

This book asserts that there are four productive conversations:

1. Initiative Conversations -- where one shares new ideas, goals, visions and futures with people who can implement and make them real
2. Understanding conversation -- where one builds awareness and knowledge of a new or existing idea in a way that helps people see how to participate in using. or accomplishing it
3. Performance conversations -- where one makes requests and promises that generate specific actions, results, and agreements, and pave the way for accountability
4. Closure conversations -- where one supports experiences of accomplishment, satisfaction, and value.  These conversations strengthen accountability and give people an honest look at the successes and failure encountered on the way to reaching a goal

 Using these conversations at the right time, in the right combinations or patterns, is the trick.

Maddaddam, by Margaret Atwood

Atwood does not disappoint, and once again she demonstrates why she is a literary great.  I finished this book a couple of weeks ago, and it still infiltrates my thoughts.  I keep finding innumerable connections and associations to it during my daily interactions. 

As for the story, it progresses and builds upon the storyline of characters from the earlier works.  Thos pigs --pigoons -- are back and they scare me half to death.  (As a child on a farm, I worked with pigs and recognize how intelligent they are without the any tampering with the frontal cortex.  The idea of these genetically altered pigs make me shudder.) 

As for the story, it is highly engaging, thought provoking, humorous (dare I say hilarious in parts), disturbing and makes we want to start the trilogy all over again.  Definitely not a trilogy for everyone, but definitely a work I want on my book shelves to read again, and again.

Library Journal offers this review:

The compelling conclusion to Atwood's dystopian trilogy opens with a brief synopsis of the series' first two books, Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood, then launches directly into the story of the MaddAddamites, survivors of a global pandemic that wiped out most of humanity.

Readers, even those unfamiliar with the human characters and the genetically engineered new species Atwood has created in her futuristic world, will be quickly drawn in and eager to find out what happens to the MaddAddamites and to the Crakers, a gentle, quasihuman species created by Crake.

Their world is full of many dangers, including direct attacks from criminally insane Painballers and from pigoons, transgenic pigs developed to grow replacement organs for humans. Toby, Zeb, and the rest of the MaddAddamites are alive, but will they be able to continue not only to subsist but to build up their small society and, eventually, live alongside the Crakers and even flourish? VERDICT Certainly of great interest to Atwood fans awaiting this third book of the trilogy and for fans of dystopian/postapocalyptic fiction generally, this finale is a gripping read for any reader.