100 books in a year

Working in Digital, I fall prey to being a little bit jaded at times with the sheer volume of information I’m forced to process on a day to day basis. I’m old enough to still remember with some fondness my teenage years devouring books from cover to cover on a Sunday afternoon curled up in some quiet corner of the house or in my 20′s sitting in some hip cafe in Fitzroy or Brunswick with a string of Latte’s and a ripping good yarn keeping me entertained. I think the height of my nerdiness, would have been in year 8, when I read, for 52 weeks straight, one Dr Who novel per week. It definitely included the entire novelisation of the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker TV series Doctor’s – Time Lords #3 & #4 respectively. I don’t recall wearing cravats and floppy hats with coloured scarves, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a photo could be reproduced showing such.

These days, much of my reading consumption is restricted to the screen of my computer or my Android tablet.

Recently on Twitter, I came across a post which led me to find the profile of Claire Diaz Ortiz.

Having a look at her background, what intrigued me is that she has set herself the personal goal of reading 100 books each year and lists them on her website “What I’m Reading.” http://clairediazortiz.com/about/what-im-reading

That simple statement of personal achievement, self awareness and endeavour got me to thinking that this is one of the first inspirational personal journeys I’d seen for a long time. Selfish in its simplicity, it speaks so much more about the type of world we live in where we consume information in short sharp bites and in a stop/start fashion where everything is reduced down to terse, emotionless sentences and streams of fact and data. And it’s not like she isn’t a busy person – she works at Twitter as the lead of Social Innovation & Philanthropy. In her own words:

Claire Diaz Ortiz (Williams) http://www.twitter.com/ClaireD”

I lead social innovation and philanthropy at Twitter & wrote Twitter for Good (out 8/11) Me: MBA, Stanford/Oxford Grad, Skoll Fdn Fellow, Hope Runs founder

Man, she would be an interesting person to meet!

Taking a cue from Claire’s idea, The below are the books that I have read in the past 12 months. No where near 100, I was still pleased with the number I got considering that I thought I would only have read half of these.

1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The On demand Brand – Rick Mathieson
3. The Perfect Mess – The benefits of disorder and chaos in our workplace
4. Enders Game – Orson Scott Card
5. The Dreaming Void – Peter F Hamilton
6. The Dangerous Book for Boys – Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden
7. Facebook Story – Sarah Lacy
8. A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder – How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices,
and on-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson, David H.Freedman.
9. The Truth about Leadership: The No-fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know by James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner
10. Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook
11. InterGalactic Medicine Show (v. 1) – Orson Scott Card
12. Matter – Iain Banks
13. Surface Detail – Iain Banks
14. 1001 Video Games you have to play before you die. – more of a skimming book, where I’ve jumped back and forth between entries. I think I’ve read about half of it.
15. 1001 Holiday destinations you have to visit before you die – likewise, more of a skimming book, I’ve read about 30% of it.
16. Media Virus – Douglas Rishkoff
17. The Sword of the Lamb
18. Shadow of the Swan – M.K Wren
19. House of the Wolf – M.K Wren
20. Absolution Gap – Alastair Reynolds
21. Revelation Space – Alastair Reynolds
22. Buyology: How Everything We Believe about Why We Buy Is Wrong : Martin Lindstrom
23. Man in the High Castle – Phillip K Dick