Long Hiatus

My apologies...moving across the country has taken me away from the computer.   I haven't forgotten the 10 or so readers that actually check up on my ramblings.   So here you go. Back to reading and blogging. I've recently stumbled across this website post on how to skim a book. Useful -- yes. But I wouldn't do this with every book.    From the productivity blog Asian Efficiency:

''The main objective of the skimming process is to familiarize yourself with the concepts of the book and to begin getting a conceptual overview of the material before you even start reading it. If you have access to a summary of the book (or if the book includes one), you can and should read that. If not, you can just skim through the concepts and form a first impression that way.

One important thing to keep in mind is that lots of books are written with extraneous details – essentially filler and fluff designed to make books longer than they need to be.

Towards the end of the skimming process, if you start to form a good high-level understanding of the concepts, you may want to start a mind map. Simply open a new map, put the title in the middle and then list the concepts as your first-tier nodes.''

Read the entire post HERE.

The Writer's Method

Gay Talese

I've mentioned in previous posts that I enjoy reading about writer's methods -- their writing space, note taking, how they organize their research, etc.  So I was happy that I stumbled upon this 3 minute video interview of literary journalist Gay Talese.  The video shows Talese at his New York home, and his writing space, directly below his apartment, which he refers to as his "bunker."  Gay Talese is most famously known for his articles on Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio -- which I believe he wrote back in the 1960s -- but he is still cranking out articles for the New Yorker and his stuff is fantastic reading.

I'm truly impressed with how well he has organized years and years of research.  If you watch the video you'll see what I'm talking about.  Finally, as you can see in the picture on the left, he is a sharp dresser.   Which is even more impressive, is that he dresses in suit and tie only to walk a few steps from his apartment to his workspace below.   Fantastic.  It reminds me of a similar habit by fellow New Yorker alum and short story writer, John Cheever.  Cheever would do something very similiar: he'd put on a suit that morning and just go a few floors down to the basement of his house to write during the day, and then when the day was over, he'd come back upstairs and take his suit off.

Well, if you have a few minutes to spare, and if you are interested in seeing how a great writer -- well, at least this great writer -- organizes his writing space, check it out HERE.  Enjoy.

Books Are the Best Gift

A Book for Father's Day

This was my first Father's Day.  Before my son was born I sat down and researched books about fatherhood and how to be a good father.  I discovered that books about fatherhood and how to be a dad are divided into two categories.  First, there's the "What to Expect When Your Expecting" category.  These are books that go into detail about the logistics of having a child.  E.g, what sort of diapers to buy, sleep cycles, why their poo changes color, etc, etc.  I've found that these books are not necessarily a narrative, but a car owners guide really (what to do IF?), with a helpful index and sometimes even tabbed sections.  So, like a dictionary, they are helpful, but aren't (at least for me) a fun read.  

The next category is the narrative memoir.  Now these are fun to read.  And while I hate to say it, I often read them and laugh at other father's misfortunes (e.g., holding your son and he suffers a "blow out").  But now I try and stuff my laugh back in my belly, because god knows whatever just happened to that unlucky father in the book is bound to happen to me, if it hasn't already.  So now I just sort of smile when I read a passage in a "father memoir" that I find hilarious, as to not upset the karma "blow out" gods.

So for this first father's day I want to recommend a book: Michael Lewis's Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood.  I’ve read it, and really enjoyed it.  Mr. Lewis is the author of Moneyball (yes, the Brad Pitt movie about baseball) and a few  other books about Wall Street, oh, and he also wrote a little book called The Blind Side (yes, the football movie with Sandra Bullock).  And a short anecdote, Admiral Stavridis was asked a few months ago what book his staff was talking about and reading, and the Admiral rattled off Mr. Lewis' book, The Big Short, which is about the financial meltdown that occurred due to the sub-prime mortgage lending which destroyed the housing market.  The man can write, and the stories he writes are very interesting.  I’m not going to talk about Home Game in detail, but let me say this: I was laughing by page 2.  The  opening of the book is him poolside with his family. And from a distance he watches as his daughter fends of some rowdy boys by telling them she just peed in the pool. Which of course, causes the young misfits to scramble, and Mr. Lewis to feel -- deservedly -- a fair amount of pride for a daughter that can hold her own.  Hilarious.   Check it out.  And for all you fathers out there: Happy Father’s Day.

Link of the Week

If you enjoy long form journalism, then look no further.  Longform is a great website that collects some of the best longform journalism from all over the web.  You'll find everything from profiles of military leaders to authors, and much more.  The quality of the stories is high; the pieces collected here are all well written and well researched.  

Take a look.  Remember, if you want to become a better writter, then you have to (1), practice writing and (2), you have to read a lot. This is another great website to add to your favorites for the non-fiction reader in you.

Clarity

Intelligence Work

I am reading Dick Wolf's new book The Intercept. It is about New York Police Detective Jeremy Fisk -- a detective in the department's Intelligence Division, a "well-funded anti-terror unit modeled upon the CIA," and his race to find and disrupt a terrorist attack before it occurs. 

I don't read mass market paperbacks with a pencil in hand, however, if I had one when I hit page 15 I would have circled and underlined this paragraph:

"Covert intervention was equal parts art and science. The adrenaline flowed differently when you were investigating crimes before they happened, rather than reacting to immediate and developing crises. The Tantric anticlimax of serving search and arrest warrant -- of taking the puzzle apart before it was quite put together -- was the only drawback to Intel. Success meant that nothing happened. No bomb detonated, no bridge collapsed, nobody screamed in the night. It meant that the city kept moving. Keeping men and women going to work, children playing in parks, elderly people complaining about the weather: this was his job." (Italics Mine).

So true. It is the core contradiction in Intel work.  To do well, to succeed, means that the public can not praise your work. It means your family will not realize if one day of work was any different than the next.   But it is the quiet professional that can do it;  it is the quiet professional that can ensure society... life... continues unimpeded, defeating those who wish do us harm.