always learning

Crazy isn’t it? I love technology and I love the web, but sometimes I just want to lie in bed / on the couch / on the floor with a real book full of pages I can touch and turn. The lack of distractions, the ability to stop multi-tasking, the connection with the past – I love it all. And this is why I go to the book store at least once a week and why I have a pile almost as tall as me awaiting….

Lately I’ve been finishing up No Logo by Naomi Klein. This is a book that I’ve wanted to read since it first came out, but somehow it always ended up falling by the wayside. Thankfully I have a like-minded friend here in KL that loaned me his copy. I’m amazed at how much of this 10-year-old book is still so relevant today. I’m seeing connections to The World is Flat in every chapter and in the last few pages I read today, she even mentions Daniel Pink of A Whole New Mind fame. Granted, her point of view is quite different from Friedman (and possibly Pink, though I haven’t read his book yet), but it is very interesting to see just how forward-thinking Klein’s book really is – and it’s quite nice to read a different perspective on globalization.

And this is why I’m so glad that Kelly Christopherson has started an online book club. First up: A Whole New Mind (just in time!). Some of the others on my shelf are:

• The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery (after watching An Inconvienent Truth, how could I resist?)
• Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta
• The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell
• Philosophy Made Simple by Robert Hellenga
• The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco (along with a new copy of Foucault’s Pendulum since my old one seems to have dissappeared)
• When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by Le Ly Hayslip (picked this one up in Vietnam)
• The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
• Third Culture Kids by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken
• Changing Minds by Howard Gardner

All this talk of books reminds me of a fun tool I’ve been using for a while: Library Thing. You can create your own virtual library (here’s mine), get recommendations, and read book reviews from people with similar taste. Loads of fun!

Image: http://www.atlanticlibrary.org/aclibrary/graphics/book_pile.jpg