ExpertDabbler

I’ve been seeing Shelfari in Subha’s blog for sometime but was never really open minded enough to explore this till today At last, this seems to be one social networking site I might be comfortable.

For a person who is conservative with money, I think I’ve been relatively generous(by my kanjus standards) in gifting books to friends. Couple of recent gifts include Po Bronsons’s What should I do with my life. I’d already blogged about this long back. I started reading this again recently and to my pleasant surprise, the thoughts this one offered me on second reading was even better.

There are some books which are not for the casual reader. They demand more scrutiny and attention. In the sense one practically needs to study those. ‘Myths of Innovation’ by Scott Berkun comes under that category. I’ve been a regular at Scott’s blog for the past 4 years. Overall, a good read but requires more effort from the reader.

One way to get the latest and greatest from Amazon is to order it online and send it to our friends in US. Someone or other always travels every month or so anyway and they can be our courier agents I managed to save on shipping this way.

I am currently reading A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink. Dan talks about how right brain thinking will be the next big mantra for success in the coming years. His arguments are compelling but more importantly he does not put you to sleep in the process. I think it should be incredibly hard to write a fast readable book on serious topics. Authors like Daniel Pink with their journalism background are specialists in such genres.

One caveat, all these books have one thing in common though, don’t try to gulp it all in a hurry. The book and a fast food joint are not one and the same.

The most basic bottomline about books, even after discounting all the gyaan, is that they are so easy on the eyes when compared to the 14 inch notebook monitors. A 30 minute book reading session before sleep is perhaps the best treatment, both for dry eyes and insomnia :-).

PS:
Folks in India can avail PDR (Professional Development Reimbursement). Essentially the money spent on books can be deducted from taxable income by submitting the bills. Unfortunately, lot of companies keep mum on this provision because its more work for them. I am not sure what kind of books are covered and what’s excluded and who decides on these issues though. I think we are safe so long as we do not claim PDR for Penthouse letters :). It’s better check with your HRs and accounts departments.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 11:58 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.