You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice.-Alexander Liang
When I decided that my March goal would be reading related I had no idea that it was National Reading Month, I just found that out while sitting down to write this blog. Apparently March 2 is the birthday of famous author Theodore Geisel.
Geisel published 46 children’s books, often characterized by imaginative character and rhyming. His most-celebrated books include the bestselling Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, and one of my personal favorites One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Theodore may be a little better known as Dr. Seuss, which is apparently properly pronounced to rhyme with “voice”.
As usual I’ve gotten a little side tracked.
I haven’t been doing a lot of reading lately. I tend to read a lot when I travel, and I tend to read a lot in spurts. The recent spurt has been that the only things I read I find online, and while I do a lot of that and really enjoy it I’d like to get my head back in a book, or kindle. On the topic of my kindle, I have built up quite a bit of a backlog of things I’ve paid for that I haven’t even cracked open. Every so often I come across something that sounds interesting and is on sale for a couple bucks or in some cases $free. I’ll usually buy it and send it to my kindle queue so that it will download next time my kindle has a connection. From what I can tell I have four of these types of books on my kindle along with two books I purchased in anticipation of my trip to China that I never got into.
Aside from those books I have two other books in my backlog. One is a reread that should be quick that I’ve been meaning to go back through at some point, so I might as well get through it here. The other is a book that’s been sitting on my bedside table for a couple of months by author Chuck Klosterman, one of my favorite authors who wrote on of my favorite books (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto). This book was something I eagerly awaited. I knew the release date and I went into Barnes and Noble with my gift card to purposely get this book. Then I carried it around with me, then I brought it to China, then I put it on my nightstand. And now I will read it.
Eight books is a bit of a lofty goal. Three books is a bit of a cop-out. Five is probably a pretty good target. But eight would be awesome. At the very least I’d like to read 5 books and get far enough into these 8 in order to determine if I want to commit to the whole thing. So without further ado, my list of books (along with Amazon affiliate links, because, why not?).
1. I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined) – Chuck Klosterman
2. Awesome Supervisory Skills: Seven Lessons for Young, First-Time Managers – Tamara Murray: I randomly came across this book and I think it might be interesting and quick. Hopefully there are a couple of useful tidbits in here.
3. Read This Before Our Next Meeting: This is something I’ve read in the past and I remember thinking it was useful. Most of the info has faded from memory so I want to get through it again. It’s a pretty quick read.
4. 11/22/63 – Stephen King: The hardcover version of this book is 866 pages. It’s a book I’ve heard some good things about. Hopefully it lives up to expectations.
5. Cutting the Game – Tom Mee Jr.: I’ll forgive the fact that the forward of this book was written by Joe Buck, and I’ll skip it. I don’t remember how I heard about this book but it’s the story of what goes into putting a sporting event on television.
6. Tech and the City: The Making of New York’s Startup Community: The foreword for this book is written by Fred Wilson who puts out the AVC blog (http://avc.com/), which I’m pretty sure is where I heard about this book. I got this one for $2.99 before it jumped to $10.
7. Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd: This was one of the books that came with me on my kindle to China. Another book I heard about on a blog that I follow. If you actually read this blog then you can understand why the title of this book stands out to me.
8. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: Another book that traveled with me across the world. Yet another one that was recommended by a blog that I read.
There is no particular order to this list. The first four are definites but not necessarily the first four I’ll get into. Between a full week in the Caribbean and some a long time in Vegas, along with all of the travel that entails, I should be able to put a good dent in this list. If by some miracle I reach the end or decide to change directions I have quite a backlog in my Amazon wish list, 90+ items as it stands right now.
So hopefully following March I will have quite a few reviews to pass along.
for more profundity or pithy humor follow me on twitter – @bicb
Comments