Dick Bolles (more formally known as Richard Nelson Bolles) is the author of What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers,
now in its 36th annual edition, with nine million copies in print. The
2007 edition (Ten Speed Press, $17.95, 1580087949) is Bolles'
favorite. He has a related Web site, www.jobhuntersbible.com, is a frequent convention keynote conventions and runs two- to five-day workshops that are open to all.Here Bolles responds to a series of queries we will occasionally ask people in the business:
On nightstand now:
The Influence of Jesus by Phillips Brooks (published 1879); The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (2005); Ask by Barbara Rollin (2001). Call me a "trampoline reader." I tend to bounce--between different books, rather than finishing one completely. Books illuminate each other. I love that kind of light.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Every Western that was ever written. No one book stands out in my memory; the plots were all similar but I came to love the West and the Western hero. I won "the summer reading contest" in the Teaneck (N.J.) public library every year, from the time I was 9, 'til I was 18, on nothing but an exclusive diet of Westerns.
Top five authors:
I tend to have favorite books rather than favorite authors. But for consistent, dependable, predictable excellence, I'd have to say I'm interested in anything by Phillips Brooks, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Peter Drucker.
Book you've "faked" reading:
Oh, come on, there must have been at least one. Probably a lot more than one. But, being human, I just don't remember them. My memory is overloaded anyway, and I rarely store useless information like this. Those books' names are long-gone, dead, and buried.
Book you are an "evangelist" for:
I'd have to say Why Men Earn More by Warren Farrell (2005). I'd give it to every woman in the job market, if I had my way. What a careful researcher the man is! And practical, with brilliant strategies for curing the problem of women's pay; it's a book every working woman can use.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Paradise Found: The Visionary Art of Amy Zerner by Monte Farber, who is a devoted husband and No. 1 fan (1995). Beautiful, inside and out.
Book that changed your life:
The New Testament. (Written somewhere between 30 A.D. and 110 A.D.) I voluntarily read this, cover to cover, when I was 14. It changed my life, my vocation, everything.
Favorite line from a book:
"My father was the most even-tempered man I ever met. He was in a seething fury from morning 'til night." Don't remember which bio it was in--I came across it when I was 23. But I have always remembered that opening line for its cleverness. I love cleverness.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (2000). Among many other things, it explained to me the long-term success of my book, What Color Is Your Parachute? (1972-2007). It's No. 2 on Business Week's paperback bestseller list, as I write. Astounding for a 35-year-old title. I never understood why until I read Malcolm.