A long weekend . . .

A long weekend you say – pshaw! Well it is for me. It is Simcoe Day in Ontario and the first Monday of August is a holiday celebrating the founder of our province. We celebrated this year by starting the weekend off by settling a feared strike in the liquor stores.
It’s been a long week of reading market research reports, Gartner Group forecasts on portals, wireless and devices, and focus group transcripts. Phew. So I thought, it’s a long weekend and what have a read lately that I thought was great that wasn’t just for work. Here are a few good titles that I’ve read lately for you to consider for your August reading (you’ll notice a paucity of fiction – I am a non-fiction kind of guy).
Freakonomics
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
It’s a very interesting book that takes a slanted look at what causes things in society. There’s even a few sections on learning and reading and libraries. He even has a blog here that’s pretty interesting.
The Tipping Point and Blink
by Malcolm Gladwell
Two really cool books that help to explain a lot about how change and insight happen. In my continuing quest to understand how people adapt information and change behaviours, this is a great read. Tipping Point is particularly good on the role of ‘context’ and helping us to further understand why context is king rather than content.
Everything Bad is Good For You
by Steven B. Johnson
his is a great book that talks about a few things I suspected but didn’t know there was so much research to support it. He shows how the generations are getting smarter; how television and movies are getting more complex; how PC games help to develop better thinking skills. All in all, it’s a pretty powerful book. It give one a little hope and aAgain this guy has a blog.
Your Call is Important to Use: The History of Bullsh*t
by Laura Penny
This Dalhousie University Professor has written a powerful book about lying that is really about truth. It’s a great reminder about the masses of information about us and the role libraries play in providing access to a wider range of information than just that which is paid for and pre-digested. Her combination of web and original primary source research is fascinating.
Well there’s the latest five. I’d recommend them all. Most have been devoured in a plane seat as I head from library to library across the continent. Books still seem to be the right format for planes. Sanitized movies on small screens just don’t do it for me.
Happy Simcoe Day! I’m heading off the pick up and start reading my new copy of The World is Flat: A Brief History fo the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman. Maybe it’ll tell me what’s happening next…
Stephen