Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Column, Book Talk

Most Read Books in the World

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Here is a graphic posted over on Squidoo showing the Top 10 Most Read Books in the World, based on the last 50 years of sales. I honestly never thought that Think and Grow Rich (1937) would be on the list and we haven’t had time to add up all of the  50 Shades of Grey numbers. We live on a really interesting planet. . .  I’ll leave it at that.

I also think it’s neat that Harry Potter (1997), The Da Vinci Code (2003) and Twilight (2005) all made the list even though all having been released in just the past 15 years. That’s pretty good pick up. And it’s interesting that they’re all fiction. In fact, over half of the books are fiction. I wonder what this list looked like in 1996 prior to Potter taking up his wand. . . was it more non-fiction or has fiction always had the larger slice of the pie?

 

Most Read Books in The World

Authors, Book Column, Book Talk

Wall Street Needs to Read More Fiction

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I recently read Arthur C. Clark‘s 1973 Rendezvous with Rama, thanks to a friend’s recommendation. I thought it was great. Especially if you like the Golden Age and old-school science fiction. If you don’t, then you might want to pass. It was fun. Anyway, I went out and picked up Clark’s sequel (the not-so-enigmatically titled) Rama II. I am not enjoying it as much as Clark is doing sooooo much world building that things are kind of slow (we’ll see how far I make it). But what I wanted to share was the passage, written in 1988, in which The Chaos of 2133 is explained for the downfall of planet Earth and why space exploration was halted:

“By the end of of the year in 2133, it had become obvious to some of the more experienced observers of human history that the “Raman Boom” was leading mankind toward disaster. Dire warnings of impending economic doom started being heard above the euphoric shouts of the millions who had recently vaulted into the middle and upper classes. Suggestions to balance the budgets and limit credit at all levels of the economy were ignored. Instead, creative effort was expended to come up with one way after another of putting more spending power in the hands of the populace that had forgotten how to say wait, much less no, to itself . . . The global stock market began to sputter in January 2134 . . . World leaders insisted that they had finally found the mechanisms that could truly inhibit the downturns of the capitalistic cycles. And the people believed them – until early May of 2134 . . . the global stock markets went inexorably down . . . three of the world’s largest banks announced that they were insolvent because of bad loans . . .”

Pretty crazy, isn’t it!? This sounds like it’s “ripped from the headlines” of 2010-2012, but it was written over 20 years ago. Maybe Wall Streeters need to read more fiction and science fiction. I mean other than being 120 years off (and the whole alien thing) Arthur C. Clark kind of called it didn’t he?

Rama 2 Cover

Book Column, Book Talk

Barnes the Bibliophile

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This article by author Julian Barnes has been making the rounds the past couple of days. I love this bit from the end:

“When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic.”

The whole article is Barnes’ take on the future of reading, the future of the book and bookstores. Nothing super new presented in it. This one just has a well thought out personal take on things, without overly romanticizing, which makes it worth sharing.

 

Book Column, Book Reviews, Book Talk

Book Review: The Information Diet

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The Information Diet Book CoverClay Johnson’s The Information Diet (published by O’Reilly) is one of those books that I want everyone to read. It is very short. So it won’t take long. But it does get you thinking (and hopefully talking) about some very important points that many of us have not yet thought about.

In order for our country and culture to remain stable we must be well informed. Johnson does a good job of quickly outlining how and why we are becoming less informed these days. To be honest, half of the stuff he mentions – you probably already know, but you just haven’t thought about the implications. The “diet” metaphor isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Mainly because it’s not so much ‘counting calories’ but thinking about the quality of what you are consuming and where it comes from (hint: local is better in food and information.)

Things like ‘what’s the difference in getting your news via Facebook rather than straight from a new source’ or ‘just how much do CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times alter a story/headline to make it “more compelling”‘ and so on. This is one of those books that you will read and then will find yourself bringing it up in conversations for the next two weeks. It helps that the author is so up front with his political leanings so that we know where things are coming from. It allows the reader to follow him honestly and listen to the causes of much of what is changing in the media landscape.

The book not only does a good job of quickly showing how our news sources alter and filter information for us, but it also begins to explain why. Which starts us down the path of trying to fix the problems. The last bit of the book does contain some concrete “how to”‘ information and a pretty strong call to action, with a companion website.

My only complaint is that this wake up call/manifesto is as short as it is. The call to action and tool set offered at the end would have been a little more compelling if backed by some deeper discussion. But then the book would have been longer… and thus, not as approachable. This is one I wish everyone would take an afternoon to read. It’s a solid 4 out of 5 for me.

(In the spirit of full disclosure I did receive this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.)