To get Ideas Read 5 Books at 1 Time
COMMENT, Global — Become an Ideas Person Part II:
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Reading books is one of those few great things that no-one can take away. Ben Franklin used books to raise his intellect and become a great thought-leader and statesman of his day.
Ben Franklin was a lifelong avid reader, having being a tradesman-printer and never attended Harvard the university of the town of his birth.
Ben Franklin started the first lending library in the USA (or at least that is the popular wisdom). He also had a private scheme of a group of friends sharing books.
We have to remember books were far more expensive than they are now.
Why books?
We can read books anywhere. Any time. In wealth or poverty. In sickness or health. Anywhere in the (developed) world.
Libraries. Bookshops. Book fairs. Amazon. Second hand bookstores. Friends books. Families books. Need not cost you a cent.
Also now we have the internet, a plethora of content.
But still there is something about books.
By way of example, at current, I have been reading concurrently a few books:
an excellent book on John Maynard Keynes only available in Australia
(I have a somewhat strong interest in Keynesian economics)Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason
A Robert Collins book of French grammar
Richard Vinen’s A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century
and just now, Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
Gore, Greenspan and Vinen are recommended reads. The links in this post takes you to Amazon with details of the books.
Starting with the Threads of History
Vinen focusses on the impact of the events on the lives of people in many countries across Europe. He uses many interesting statistics. Vinen challenges many assumptions, but also draws the reader to make many assumptions.
Some of his assumptions agreed with my experience of visiting French, British, Australian and German War history Museums. There are vastly different pictures of the events of the war in each museum.
De Gaulle and Vichy are viewed vastly differently through the prism of French & English history.
For all it’s strength in raising the unexpected, Vinen’s book is not the only book to read. Vinen slips in some ideological viewpoints neatly into the text as new assumptions.
The antidote to One Author’s View - reading Multiple books
I often read multiple books. I also often stop at the 1/3 or 2/3 point before finishing the book some time later, if at all.
Sometimes I will read a book from cover to cover in a store or library in around an hour. Especially books which have a good single theme but have been expanded to fill too many pages.
Overlapping themes become apparent when reading multiple works. Works in related texts reinforce each other. Themes across texts can be identified.
All of these books are excellent brain-food books.
Ideas Person Activity 1
This week, pick a topic that interest you.
And why not read around the topic instead of reading one book on a topic?
Bonus Points: Read divergent / opposite / contradictory views.
I am reading about Keynes, but in the past have also read other opposite or dissimilar economists. Just 2 hours ago, I read some others’ blog posts on the classical economics school
Suggested books.
Any of those books above.
If I had the time I would throw Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (Bantam Classics)
Even if you are not a capitalist you should read Smith. Often Smith is misquoted repeatedly, so much so that much of what he wrote is actually against the type of the laissez-faire thinking he is associated with.
Smith is worthy of considered reflection, so will be left for when I have more time.
Ideas Person lesson:
Read widely and well. One of the first steps to being an Ideas person is to read multiple texts on related themes simultaneously, and get over the desire to finish those books or read anything fully except that which is worthy of considered reflection.
It’s an idea. Let me know your thoughts. I have opened up the comments so you can add comments (not spam which is bounced automatically) more freely.
Take care,
Christopher
Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.
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