Dominic Sayers

Managing my reading lists

Steve Patrick, who clearly has my education as a personal mission, has recommended another couple of books (for which I thank him). I've added them to the lists. By the way, the idea of storing del.icio.us tags in del.icio.us itself is a fabulous one which I can see all sorts of uses for. I am very pleased with my list of lists. Now, Steve's comment raises a couple of points of order. Firstly, one of the books is a work of fiction. You (o erudite reader) might think that some of the other books on my lists are works of fiction too but I haven't read them so I can't say that yet. This has led me to open a new category, fiction I should read. Hopefully it won't get too long too soon. Secondly, Sean Park suggested that one of the books on my list wasn't very good so I gave it a "deprecated" category - not removing it from the list altogether but perhaps putting it to the end of the queue. Steve Patrick disagrees with this assessment and thinks it should be restored to its rightful place. How do I deal with this? I've decided to use the Charmed principle. Steve cannot remove a spell that somebody else has cast on him. Sean either has to remove it himself or another witch needs to cast a reverse spell. Them's the rules. If you want Traders, Guns and Money restored to its place on the list then let me know. Footnote: I don't think I could manage my reading lists this well using LibraryThing, Google Books or Facebook's Visual Bookshelf. Using del.icio.us is really quick and easy and does everything I need. The book-specific tools want me to do things in a particular way but del.icio.us is general and universal.

Book lists

I've been using del.icio.us to manage my reading lists (I still have some minor issues with LibraryThing). You may have noticed the links on the right of this page. Having now finished The Long Tail and Barbarians At The Gate the list of Books I Should Have Read is starting to look manageable. I'm considering whether to add The Cluetrain Manifesto to the list, but I fear I will have a similar reaction to No Logo (which I ended up hurling across the room). This is malice aforethought, though. I will add it and start it and only abandon it if it confirms my prejudice. State of play: Books I should have read: still unread, now under my belt, abandoned Books I have been recommended to read: still unread, warned off. I'm not doing book reviews here because there are better places to put them, but I heartily recommend both The Long Tail and Barbarians At The Gate. I liked The Long Tail because it actually contains some supporting evidence for its theories (unlike The Tipping Point which seemed to be based entirely on anecdotes). I liked Barbarians At The Gate because I like thrillers and I haven't read one for a while. The fact that the events actually happened just makes it more gripping.

How to read, part 2

Stephen Smoliar recommends keeping brief notes on things that he doesn't immediately understand. Guru suggests reading page 1 then page n of a book. If page n doesn't make sense then let n = (n+1)/2 and try again. Abi collates a couple of tips from Brad DeLong and Tyler Cowen on reading productively: you are allowed to skip pages! Who knew? Also, you are allowed to stop reading if you're not getting any value from the book.