Link of the Week

"The Bookworm" by Carl Spitzweg

Wow.  Driving home the other day I was listening to the radio and stumbled upon "Bookworm," a radio show which hosts established and upcoming authors of fiction and poetry (scrolling through the large cache of interviews I found a few non-fiction writers as well).   All of the interviews are available for free on the web.  The inventory of interviews is huge -- going back all the way to 1990s.  For us book lovers, finding another place were books are discussed is like finding another trunk of treasure.  Truly.  So this was a pleasant discovery while flipping through the AM channels.   

Here's the description from the website:

A must for the serious reader, Bookworm showcases writers of fiction and poetry - the established, new or emerging - all interviewed with insight and precision by the show's host and guiding spirit, Michael Silverblatt.

You'll find the website with the podcasts here.

Quote of the Week

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.  -- Descartes

Best Military Reading List, Ever

I was surfing around this evening for new and inspiring reading lists on military history/biography books, and after a few queries I ended right back up at one of my favorite military blogs. Author and journalist Tom Ricks has a reading list he posted back in 2012 which he calls his "Best Military Reading List Ever: The ones he came back to read second time."  I didn't remember seeing his list, so I eagerly scrolled through the post.

Oscar Wilde once said that “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” A little strict, I believe. But Wilde hits on a significant point: the best books are the books we do want to read over and over again.  Ricks has a lot of Vietnam on there, a subject that certainly interests him. Colin Powell's memoir is on there (which I've read twice; excellent book), Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command (another excellent book), and a few others. It is not heavy in military classics -- Clausewitz is on there, but nothing else that would probably be considered a "military classic," no Sun Tzu, no Mahan, no Thucydides.  I'm not criticizing  the lack of classics, it's simply an observation.  Overall, it looks like a good list.  I haven't read many of the books that cover the Vietnam war  -- so I can't speak to those -- but some of the others are certainly worth your time. 

His entire list is here.

How Do You Organize A Home Library?

I've recently finished Jacques Bonnet's small but excellent book, Phantoms On The Bookshelves.  Absolutely no question, Bonnet is a bibliophile.  He owns a library of some 40,000 titles.  That is a lot of books.  Phantoms On The Bookshelves is a short book, coming in at just over 100 pages.  It's full of anecdotes, aphorisms, and is really a long love letter to all book lovers.  He also has managed to drop fantastic quotes among his stories and reflections; every few pages you read such greats as:

"With few books, but learned/I live in conversation with the dead/ And I listen to the deceased with my eyes" - Francisco de Quevedo.

"[Writing is] great, very great, in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances  of time and space." - Abraham Lincoln

"Some people are fond of horses, others of wild animals; in my case, I have been possessed since childhood by a prodigious desire to buy and own books." - Julian The Apostate

"Libraries, like museums, are a refuge from old age, sickness and death." - Jean Grenier....and many more.

One of my favorite parts of this slim volume, are the pages detailing the challenge of organizing 40,000 volumes.  He starts by describing Georges Perec's attempt at categorizing books, which Perec said could be done by:

alphabetically
by continent or country
by colour
by date of acquisition
by date of publication
by size
by genre
by literary period
by language
by frequency of consultation
by binding
by series

Bonnet categorizes his massive library by literature, non-fiction, and then the arts.  And within each genre he has it broken down into sub-genres (e.g., literature is then subdivided by language; art is divided into music, cinema, photography, etc).  But he spends many pages ruminating over the challenges categorizing so many books and the myriad of ways one may go about doing so.  Each to their own is his essential message, but best of luck if you have thousands of volumes to get in order.

Phantoms On The Bookshelves is a great read.  If you own lots of books, or someday wish to build your own impressive library, Bonnet will certainly leave your mouth watering.  Bonnet is a Frenchman, and many of the works he mentions are foreign works, most of which I've never heard of.  Not that they may not be excellent reads, but I suggest you bring a pencil and paper to write down the many titles he names and look them up later and see if any interest you.

A portion of my library on the living room floor in 2008

My library is still somewhere around 800 titles -- maybe more, maybe less.  But I'd say that's a good guess.  In 2008 I tried to organize my books but space has always been limited.  My wife's books always make their way among my books and I still spend too much time trying to find a particular title.  I envy Bonnet, who says that even among 40,000 titles he still knows where to find a particular book.  Someday I'll have a house large enough to hold my library of 800?  2,000?  10,000? titles.  

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

- Gene Fowler

Learning from Others

April's edition of The Harvard Business Review has a great article about how best to learn from others. The title of the article is "Make Yourself an Expert: How to pull knowledge from the smartest people around you." In it, the authors, Dorothy Leonard, Gavin Barton, and Michelle Barton, describe the process which you can learn from others.  Roughly, it goes something like this:

1. Observation
2. Practice
3. Partners and Problem Solve
4. Take Responsibility

And during the entire process "codify the new knowledge in notes." 

Every organization has at least a few people which are the "go to" people, the best at what they do.  The authors stress it is these people that are the best mentors and teachers, and we have to help ourselves if we want to become better.  And they go on to say, "You can't count on companies or mentors to equip you with the skills and experience you need. You must learn how to "pull" deep smarts from others."

Finally, these questions will probably start you off in the right direction:

"After observing your expert, ask, what did he do and why?  What did I do?  What worked?  What didn't?"

Quote of the Week

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

-- Francis Bacon