I know it is more than a month since we have hit 2018. But I think we still have enough time to talk of reading and learning. Last year I did a 50 Book Challenge on Goodreads and closed 2017 with around 54 Books. But this year I decided not to do a challenge. There are two reasons.

1. The challenge at times takes the upper hand and you lose both fun and the learning experience.
2. I also started looking for books that could increase the count rather than give me something really meaningful.

So this year 2018 I decided to differentiate ‘Books for learning’ and ‘Books for fun’. And not doing a challenge let’s me focus a bit more on my writing as well.

The other day someone told me reading is a fast diminishing past time for people. I don’t agree. Yes! reading in its traditional sense of reading a book is kind of on the lower side, but more and more people consume more and more words everyday over the internet.

Reading a book is a whole lot different from reading on the internet, because many times what you read on the internet is just a ‘traffic boosting content piece’. When you take a book and go from page to page you are going through years of research and study, thinking and countless revisions and proof readings. The book that you hold is the result of a lot of effort, an effort that is tough to fathom in a ‘cut and paste’ culture.

I always recommend my friends and clients and colleagues that they should read. That they should invest in books, kindle or otherwise, though I still prefer paper.

I created a list for 2018 that will fall in my ‘Books for learning’ bucket

1. Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow Paperback by Daniel Kahneman
3. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail–but Some Don’t by Nate Silver
4. The Mammoth Book of the West Paperback – Import by Jon E. Lewis 
5. Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
6. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
7. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
8. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
9. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
10. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
11. Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel
12. Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space And Make The Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim

I am also waiting for NNT’s Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life which is releasing on Feb 27th. 

My 2018 List of ‘Books for fun’ includes a varied list of poems, classics and short stories.

Also planning a whole new set of learning through conversations with many people which would be built over time.

I recommend you to make a list of your reading preferences for the year and work on it.

Wishing you a great year with Books.

Categories: Blog, Enjoying Life and Work, On Learning

Tags: Books, Featured, Learning, Reading