always learning

Living overseas in non-English speaking countries, I tend to stock up on books whenever I’m back in the US. Usually I start my Amazon order as soon as the school year starts (August/September), adding books for months, before I finally purchase sometime in May, scheduled to arrive at my parents’ house just in time for my annual visit. Of course, this monster order fluctuates throughout the year because I can usually find some of the more popular books here in my favorite bookstore, Kinokuniya.

All of this stockpiling usually leads to a heavy bookshelf (or two) bulging with books waiting to be read throughout the year. Unfortunately, I almost never get through all of them in one school year, but I love seeing them there, waiting to be read, so that when I finally have my chance, I’m usually so excited I devour them in days (most likely when we’re lounging at the beach during holidays).

As usual, I have a selection of books on display again this school year, a few of which I’ve been able to read during holidays, but many are still waiting for the perfect moment. Here are some highlights of what I’ve got on the shelf:

• Disrupting Class by Dr. Clayton Christensen
• The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• Leading in a Culture of Change by Michael Fullen
• The Spike by Damien Broderick
• Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
• A New Literacies Sampler by Michael Knobel and Colin Lankshear
• The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig
• Knowing Knowledge by George Siemens
• Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
• Meaningful Learning Using Technology by Elizabeth Alexander Ashburn and Robert E. Floden
• Changing Minds by Howard Gardner
• Generation Digital by Katherine Montgomery
• The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Counterknowledge by Damian Thompson
• Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
• Youth Online by Angela Thomas
• Distributed Leadership by James P. Spillane
• Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins

I’ve got a few more on another shelf I’m anxious to read as well:

• Teaching for Understanding with Technology by Martha Stone Wiske, Kristi Rennebohm Franz, and Lisa Breit
• Reinventing Project Based Learning by Suzie Boss, Jane Krauss, and Leslie Conery
• Web 2.0: New Schools, New Tools by Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum
• The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli
• Third Culture Kids by David C. Pollock and Ruth Van Reken
• International Schools, International Education by Hayden & Thomps

So, you can imagine how pleased I was to read the following on the very first page of The Black Swan:

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of those books have you read?” and the others – a very small minority – who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market will allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books.

What’s on your shelf?

Ah, vacation is finally here!

This year has gone by so fast, I honestly can’t believe it’s already Songkran (Thai New Year). Amazingly, this is the first vacation where we haven’t either had friends visiting or been on our way to visit friends in new exciting countries. Tomorrow we head out to Phuket for a week of eating, sleeping, swimming, and enjoying the antics of the hotel’s baby elephant.

I’m definitely looking forward to the extensive relaxing sleeping (on the beach, at the pool, wherever I can get horizontal) I plan to do over the next week.

Just in case I can muster up the energy to do a little old-school reading, in between naps of course, I’m bringing along a few must-reads:

• The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil
• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh
• Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
• The Root of Wild Madder by Brian Murphy
• Incendiary Circumstances by Amitav Ghosh
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
• Not on Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast

Actually, these books serve a dual purpose, not only are they entertaining for my “awake time,” but they do a mighty good job of reserving a table at the all-important breakfast buffet. And, truly, what kind of vacation is complete without the breakfast buffet eat-a-thon? Either way, I’m pretty sure that 90% of these books will end up accompanying me on my next vacation, but a girl can try right?

See you in a week!

Karon Beach, Phuket image from yeowatzup

Tags: travel, Thailand, Phuket, reading, books, personal

Interestingly, I started this post a few weeks ago and never managed to get it finished, but just this week Carolyn Foote (in a clear show of some sort of mind reading ability) actually tagged me to find out what’s on my bookshelf, so here goes…

I have a confession: I love buying books, but sometimes it takes me forever to read them. Case and point: Before we left Malaysia in June I spent a few hours ordering dozens of books from Amazon for my trip back to the US this summer, even though I already had a huge pile of unread books already packed away in my shipment. My intention was to read them while I was lounging leisurely by the pool during my summer holidays. Somehow the time slipped away (read: I spent far too much time shopping) much too quickly and by the time we were packing our bags for the flight back to Thailand, I realized I hadn’t actually read any of the books I bought! Thankfully, now that I’m back in the thick of things, learning every day (instead of just vacuously wasting my summer away), I’m back in reading mode.

Here are some of the books currently on my shelf that I have yet to read:

• Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger (well, I finished this one last week and I loved it!)
• Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
• Linked by Albert-Lazlo Barabasi
• Emergence by Steve Johnson
• Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins
• Small Pieces Loosely Joined by David Weinberger
• Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Re-Imagine by Tom Peters
• Millennials Rising by Neil Howe and William Strauss
• Growing up Digital by Don Tapscott
• Not on Our Watch by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
• Incendiary Circumstances by Amitav Ghosh
• Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

And, of course, now that I’ve been to Learning 2.0, I want to buy these books:

• Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience
• Teaching for Understanding with Technology
• Building Online Learning Communities
• Wired Shut: Copyright and the Digital Culture
• The Culture Code
• Generation Digital

Plus I still have dozens of unread books in my shipment that should arrive any day now…

What’s on your bookshelf?

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