Ho‘ohana Aloha

Ryan Holiday:

I shouldn’t be able to read most of the books on my shelf. I never took a single classical history class and I cheated through most of Economics 001. Still, the loci of my library are Greek History and Applied Economics. And though they often are beyond me educationally, I’m able to comprehend them because of some equalizing tricks. Reading to lead or learn requires that you treat your brain like the muscle that it is–lifting the subjects with the most tension and weight. For me, that means pushing ahead into subjects you’re not familiar with and wresting with them until you can–shying away from the “easy read.”

Also see his Best Book Recommendations of 2011 and Books to Base Your Life On

I’m giving myself a Goodreads challenge again, and this was book 5 for me this month. I tend to read more early in the year, and my challenge is to read books more consistently. The Kindle Daily Deal helps immensely, for it constantly adds to the queue in an easily affordable way. So many books, so little time…

Where Good Ideas Come From

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson (Goodreads links)
Link to Amazon.com if you prefer it: Where Good Ideas Come From byJohnson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a word, exceptional.

I greatly appreciate authors like Johnson who are ‘slow hunch’ cultivators, thorough researchers, and articulate explainers.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is a focused celebration of the phrase “hindsight is 20/20.” The scientific history of innovation is curated to support Johnson’s thesis, which is his answer to this question: What kind of environment creates good ideas?

There is another, more subtle question which lurks throughout the book as well: Are you open to sharing your ideas before they’ve fully formed? (…for here are the reasons why.)  …More

From the classic How to Read a Book, originally written by Mortimer Adler in 1940 and revised with Charles van Doren in 1972:

When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it — which comes to the same thing — is by writing in it.

Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.

Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.”

Completely agree.

With Kindle-reading, am doing this: How to Get Your Kindle Highlights into Evernote

Change is in the air, and Managing with Aloha’s days are numbered…

Get your books to keep delivering after you’ve read them that first time.

Give your library some character: so many bookshelves are stuffy, boring and lifeless.

These are ideas from a grade-school teacher which can be adapted to any bookshelf, turning it into a truly USEFUL library: The key would be in deciding your own categories of usefulness. Could they be sorted by your values, your causes, and other projects? Besides being front-facing, your books would be future-facing.

Can you imagine how a one-wall lending library organized in this way could transform the energy in every small business break room? Incorporate that bookstore trick, where the recommendations of employees are inserted with each book too, and you’ll encourage more conversations among your readers.

Via Linda Hartley on Twitter