Bedside Reading

In the last two weeks, some books have moved off my bedside table to be replaced by others. I usually try to mix my reading so there's always about 4 or 5 books on the go together and I can shuffle between them as mood takes me. The mix is usually culture/technology; art; biography; religion and fiction (usually crime or detective). This week I've finished a technology book and Steve Marriott: All Too Beautiful, the biography of Small Faces and Humble Pie's frontman. A mod who set fashion standards in the sixties and contemporaries of The Who, Marriott's performances were legendary. He then left and went on to do it all again with Humble Pie in the US, but drugs and the excesses of the rock'n'roll lifestyle, coupled with his own self-destructive personality were to defeat him in the end seeing him playing small pub gigs up until his death at age 44 in a housefire. Possibly schizophrenic, a prima donna who carried grudges for years, but above all a white man with a black voice whose talent was instantly recognizable, All Too Beautiful is tragic in its telling of Marriott's failures and successes.

The other book that has held me mesmerised for a few weeks now has been The Shallows by a past editor of the Harvard Business Review, Nicholas Carr. The book describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind” — from the alphabet, to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and now in our lifetimes, the computer.  Carr also weaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience on brain pasticity by such pioneers Merzenich and Kandel. Our brains actually change in response to our experiences and the technologies/tools we use to find, store, and share information can literally reroute our neural pathways. As a consequence there are profound changes in the way we live and communicate, remember and socialise - even in our self-concepts. By moving from the depths of thought to the shallows of distraction, the web is actually fostering ignorance. The Shallows is not a manifesto for neo-luddites, but a reminder of how far the Internet has become entrenched in our daily existence and is affecting the way we think. As a teacher, its a book that compels me to examine my own growing dependence on  technology and question my reliance on it as a teaching tool. Carr's book is one I'll be returning to again in the next few months.

The Shallows has been replaced by Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building The Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers. Powers thesis is very similar to Carr's but nowhere near as complex or empirical, rather more personal and anecdotal. Both books are easy to read, but Powers' is more warm and fuzzy and tends to be more about his own personal journey through technological dependence and his questioning of how far we should go forward  or relent and try turning the clock back.  I must admit that after The Shallows I found this a little simplistic and it is lingering on my shelf at the moment until I get my head back into it. So if you've been reading the blog and noticed the change of position of books on Shelfari, this might explain why. You may also have noticed some other purchases that have appeared.

At least once a month, I haunt a little-known bookstore in the next suburb that has an excellent range of books at great prices. Today I picked up a copy of The Lost City of Z: A Legendary British Explorer's Deadly Quest to Uncover the Secrets of the Amazon' by David Grann (in perfect condition for just $3!!). Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was the last of a breed of great British explorers who ventured into 'blank spots' on the map with little more than a machete, a compass and unwavering sense of purpose. In 1925,  Fawcett believed the impenetrable jungle held a secret to a large, complex civilization like El Dorado, which he christened the 'City of Z' and he and his son set out to find it. They vanished without a trace. For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers searched for the expedition and the city. Many died from starvation, disease, attacks by wild animals, and poisonous arrows. Others simply vanished. In The Lost City of Z, David Grann retraces the footsteps of the great Colonel Fawcett and his followers, in an attempt to solve one of the greatest mysteries. Looks like a cracking good read! It seems there's a healthy amount of ego in some of the biographies I've been reading of late - from Marriott to Fawcett and even the late Steve Jobs in the iCon bio I read earlier this year. I'll be interested to read this biography and see just how far Fawcett's self-confidence extended.
Burn brightly, Pete.

Pain-Free Day

This morning I awoke to a pain-free day - the first in almost 2 months since I damaged my arm last break. I'm back on a non-steroid pain reliever called Mobic, which has worked slightly in the past but is brilliant today. I'm a bit of a sook when it comes to pain and sometimes the smallest injury can overwhelm me. These last 2 months have not been great - struggling to teach, unable to open bottles, do basic chores, hug someone without inflicting some sort of self-pain. So after a decent night's sleep, I've awoken to a pain free morning being able to lift things like the Coffee jar and even open it easily. (So what will life be like at 70?)

So today I'm hoping to complete some more marking, watch a little more TV and currently I'm relaxing and reading the Steve Marriot biography (All Too Beautiful). If you need a decent pain relief drug, I can't help but highly recommend this one. So - fewer posts, more reading for me for me today. Thank God for holidays!
Burn brightly Pete

“How to Read 70+ Books in a Year”- Scott H. Young

Over the past two years I’ve read over 120 books. If you add up partial books I read for specific segments, that number would be well over 140. But only four years ago I would have read 10-12 books per year. Although reading at least seventy books a year sounds difficult, it doesn’t require a huge investment of time.

Here’s how I did it:

Step One: Learn to Speed Read
Some people see speed reading as a magical technique to ingest thousands of pages per hour. Therefore it tends to divide those people who are mystified by it and those who think it is a complete fraud. I’d like to argue that speed reading is neither. The term “speed reading” itself is a bit off. The real idea behind speed reading is that you know how (and when) to speed up and when to slow down. With a few basic techniques you can get a sizable increase on your maximum speed.

Summary tips for speed reading:
1. Use your forefinger to follow the line on the page. This focuses your vision onto a specific part of the text.
2. Practice read textbooks faster than you can comprehend. This isn’t actual reading but it will make you familiar with using your finger and slowly increase your maximum speed.
3. State your purpose before starting to read. This will allow you to focus on information you need and reject information you don’t.

Step Two: Always Have a Book

This one may sound obvious, but the best way to increase the amount of books you read is to always have a book. Gaps of a few weeks without any reading material means several less books you can read each year. Worse, time spent without a book breaks down your reading habits so it can be harder to start again. If always having a book to read sounds to constrictive, maybe you’re reading the wrong article. You need a passion for finding new ideas and learning. Outside pressure won’t help.

Step Three: One Book at a Time
I strive to never read more than one book at a time. There are a couple reasons for this:
1. You can’t read two books simultaneously, so having two books partially completed isn’t going to accelerate the amount you are reading.
2. Each book uses up your mental RAM, making it more likely to forget critical details when switching between books.
3. You keep reading a bad book instead of tossing it. Either keep reading a book or get rid of it. Don’t put it on “hold” while you skim through other books.
4. Reading one book keeps you focused.

Step Four: Fill Gap Time With Reading
Gap time is the small windows of five to ten minutes you can’t schedule activities in. This could be waiting in line at the dentist, a spare ten minutes hanging on the end of your lunch break or a fifteen minute gap between classes. Reading is the perfect filler for gap time. Usually I can find a total of twenty to thirty minutes each day just in gap time. With that amount you can read at least forty books a year on gap time alone. That means you could get over three dozen books read annually – without investing extra time. The only requirement to utilize gap time is that you carry a book with you.

Step Five: Cut the Television and Web-Surfing
The next way to grab a bit more reading time is to cut background noise. Background noise is the activities you do when you don’t have anything to do. Usually television or web-surfing, this often means watching programs that have zero entertainment value or rechecking your RSS feeds for the fiftieth time today. Create the habit of reading whenever you don’t have something planned. Television and internet usage can be great, if you are watching shows you enjoy or making good use of the net. But if the shows aren’t adding anything to your day, turn them off and pick up your book.

Step Six: Keep a To-Read List
My to-read list is a perpetual Amazon shopping cart filled with books recommended to me. Motivating yourself to read a current book is as simple as having books after it to read. My to-read list motivates me to finish a current book because I’m interested in searching through the one after it. Keeping a to-read list also takes the effort out of tracking books. I almost never need to go into the bookstore and just browse. Whenever I get a link for an interesting book, I add it to my Amazon shopping cart in advance.

Getting Started
I don’t need to tell you the benefits of reading books. As a kid you probably saw tacky motivational posters in your school informing you that, “Reading is Power!” The motivation to read seventy books a year needs to come from within. External pressures like getting good grades, pride from considering yourself more academic than your friends or hoping to find that perfect answer at the bottom of a self-help bin aren’t going to cut it.

Procrastinator's Corner 2

Bad joke! I really do have a problem with procrastination. For almost 20 years I worked in the advertising industry and often left tasks until the last minute. To some degree, it seemed to heighten the adrenaline and I seemed to function better in terms of creativity (or at least I thought so). In shifting over to teaching, things altered considerably. Expectations shifted and work was required  in more finished forms with a lot less tap-dancing to explain what was happening, and all to very tight schedules. So having got into a habit of procrastinating ("Where would advertising people be without the last minute?" a client once asked me), I now had to shift. Easier said than done!

I knew I had to change somehow, so I tried the usual things - TNT: Today not Tomorrow; Endless lists (which I ignored); 7 habits which worked for a few weeks but died eventually with its relentless paperwork. Finally I read Neil Fiore's book "The NOW Habit" which talked about the major problem I possess which is the fear of failure. Procrastination is a learned protective reaction to my fear of failure, pressures and feelings of being overwhelmed by situations. So for me its a process of self-talk and recognition of language where I replace my inner dialogues and shift my beliefs about my own abilities and self-worth.

Fiore has recently written another book which I haven't read: The Now Habit at Work. I'd recommend his first volume to anyone. Recently I discovered my 82 year old father-in-law reading my copy, acknowledging it had been one of his failings and the book helped him better understand himself. Neil Fiore - worth looking at.

Burn brightly, Pete

Reading update

I'm almost finished The Leopard by Jo Nesbo - about 70 pages to go tonight. Half way through Jane Haddam's The Headmaster's Wife, I became bogged down and switched to Nesbo's latest Norwegian thriller.  I was recently looking to re-read Niall Williams' Four Letters of Love again and just this week a friend has kindly loaned me his copy of Flaming London by Texan writer Joe R Lansdale, one of my favourite American authors. Irreverant, outrageous and extreme, this book is the sequel to Zeppelins West. Lansdale is not to everyone's taste and this rewrite of Twain and Verne's SF  invasion of London is shaping up to be every bit as good as its predecessor. It should be a quick, easy read and since I have been given a day off early next week, it'll be something to look forward to on the literary front.

Now some of you are possibly wondering how can a man who savours the writing of Niall Williams' Four Letters of Love possibly enjoy the proctological humour and extreme fiction of Lansdale? 'Tis a mystery as the Irish would say. My extreme tastes in high and low culture continue to confound even my own understandings. If you haven't read Williams book, grab a copy - you'll want to be Irish by the end of it and you'll understand the idea of love and destiny being shaped by fate and not merely time. Brilliantly crafted, great descriptive writing with a moving poetic story, Williams has written a wonderful book on the beauty of love and the power of letters.


So, I'll post back in a day or two on Nesbo and Haddam.


Burn brightly, Pete.

Boschian Detour

I was hoping to settle down to my planned reading this week, but in cleaning up my library shelves (over 3,500 books last count!), I detoured and read Michael Connelly's The Reversal, his recent outing with Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller.

The last Bosch I read was Nine Dragons which I was so bad I almost swore off Connelly for life. Dragons was one of the most mediocre novels I've read in a while and was reminded of Harold Robbins writing in the seventies when he realised how much he earned per word published. I wondered if Connelly had reached the same point and this book was the nadir in his works so far.

Fortunately, The Reversal was a return to form and I found it an easy read knocking it over in a day (thank God for holidays!).  Having worked my way through Jo Nesbo. I was surprised at how easy it was to work through Connelly with his flowing dialogue and easy to follow plot. Maybe he's more lightweight than Nesbo and doesn't suffer from the viscissitudes of translation, but it was a quick easy read and an enjoyable entry into the canon.

Burn brightly, Pete

Currently reading...

Back to the books after a week or two off. I am currently on holidays for two weeks ( the upside of working at a private school) and kicked off my holidays by installing roller blinds onto the exterior of my house (I'm hopeless on ladders); cutting up old timber and trees for dumping; built and organised shelving on my back verandah; watched some old movies and TV series (Sullivan's Travels, The Stuntman and Spatacus - blood and boobs) and have now finally picked up where I left off reading.
I'm about to re-read Tywla Tharp's The Creative Habit - a distillation of her wisdom on the creative process as well as finding time to get back to Jane Haddam's The Headmaster's Wife - homicide, sex and scandal at a private school and a much lighter read than the previous novel I've just finished by Jo Nesbo. I've enjoyed Haddam's previous 20 or so Demarkian novels (I'm trying to be good and read them in their correct order). I've found them to be a reasonable sort of cosy detective novel - similar but superior to the old Agatha Christies I cut my teeth on when I was sixteen and just started to enjoy the process of reading (Thank you Miss Forsyth - my year 11 English teacher!).

Burn brightly, Pete.

FYI

TCOLondon was approached by Google to create a space for people to think. 


The result: Think Quarterly... with downloadable pdf of the data issue.


Burn Brightly, Pete.

Input Week

“You are inquisitive. You collect things... Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting.  If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. Its interesting. It keeps your mind fresh.” - Tom Rath on Input.

For the last few years, I've been a disciple of Buckingham and the Gallup group books. I particularly found the Strengthsfinder 2.0 book by Tom Rath liberating and insightful with my main strengths being : Input; Ideation; Connectedness; Futuristic; and Intellection.

This week has been a bit of a nightmare as the last week of term, but it has also been a personal input week - with performer friends Dennis and Tony talking about industry peers and challenging my levels of creative output; Dave challenging my intellectual processes discussing theology, the nature of creativity and divinity, imagination and my physical abilities (at 68, he puts me to shame); and an old mate from my teenager years, Greg, reminding me of the successes in my life - family, friends, career and reliving some nostalgic past events.

It's also been a week of input in knowledge - from reading magazines like Wired and Think Quarterly, websites about current Design and the Golden Spiral, to watching art history docos on Rembrandt, Vermeer, Gleeson and today, the Rokeby Venus by Spanish court painter Velasquez.

I'm currently catching up where I left off in my reading two weeks ago reading an art book on the prints of Roy Lichtenstein, The Snowman by Jo Nesbo (a Norwegian thriller) and Re-Imagine! by Tom Peters. Last night during the Bronco's match, to up the creative ante, I challenged Greg to a competition to complete a novel each by Christmas. And I started a small nude painting for a friend whose tastes run to the traditional - hopefully it won't be too challenging. If Velasquez can do it...

Burn Brightly, Pete.

Ups and Downs

Life of late seems even more rollercoasterish.... from the joys of watching a student produce a successful work - surprising classmates and themself.... to those moments of dark introspection when the black dog bites and the frustrations of the past month seem to bubble to the surface.

This month I've been given a free "Get out of Hell Card" from old mate David Millikan and I hope to be joining him and Susan on their property near Berry in NSW. David has been in Brisbane and Kingaroy recently working on a piece about a cultist who purports to be the reincarnated Jesus and we recently caught up. The woman in Dave's life is Susan Dermody, mother of aussie actress Maeve Dermody who is making waves in a newly released Aussie film "Griff the Invisible" so it promises to be an interesting time living with filmmakers again.

Road to Berry - Lloyd Rees  1947

Berry is the area where Lloyd Rees produced his iconic "The Road to Berry" as well as being near where Arthur Boyd lived and worked for so long producing his wonderful landscapes on the Shoalhaven River. So much of Australian art has such a strong sense of place and ownership of a locale so spending time talking about art and theology and life will hopefully renew my soul. One of my favourite authors, John Updike said there are three great things - art, sex and religion (we'll probably get around to third at some point - boys will be boys). I'm looking forward to the time off and the chance to unwind and sort through some of the accumulated clutter in my life at present.

Reading is on hold at the moment.

By the bedside is :

The Snowman - Jo Nesbo (Norwegian Noir on loan from a friend)

The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp (40 years of wisdom on the creative process)

The Headmaster's Wife - Jane Haddam (American version of Agatha Christie)

Drive - Daniel Pink (The nature of human motivation and the mismatch between science and education's understanding of the process)

The Politics of God and the Politics of Man - Jacques Ellul (One of my favourite theologians  and ex-resistance fighter explores the political response)

Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer (cutting edge research and techniques for memory and total recall)

... and I've just recently picked up a book of Lichtenstein's Drawings and Prints to replace the Egon Schiele: Drawing and Watercolours I've recently completed.


So here's to the glimmer of hope in our lives as we reconsider, reconstruct and reconnect.

Burn Brightly, P.