Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

A few days before my vacation Toronto, I went through the library of books in my apartment, and organized them into two shelves, one for the books I've read and another for the books I haven't read. My situation isn't as bad as Ealasaid's, with a bookshelf of unread books that at least doubles the size of mine, but at least until I read them all, a new rule: for every book that I buy, regardless of whether I've read that newly bought book or not, I will give away one book. No rules around size or whether I've already read it, or who gets it (a friend, a stranger, the used bookstore, or the library). This is just my way of keeping the number of things in my apartment to a minimum, and ensuring bookshelf sustainability, while at the same time knowing that I'll never have to worry about running out of things to read.

Monique links to the miniBookExpo for Bloggers, where you claim a book in exchange for sending in $3, and promising to write about the book within a month. If my unread pile weren't as high as it is, I'd be interested in claiming a few of the books listed, including The Best American Magazine Writing 2006 [claim by leaving a comment] and The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami (audiobook, not many of which I've listened to) [claim by leaving a comment], but if you're looking for some sweet summer reading, the miniBookExpo might be for you.

A suggestion for next year: a small maple leaf next to each book's listing. I'm making an effort to read more local authors, and I'm sure Canadian publishers could use the extra little indication that the writers are themselves Canadian.

Up until about 2003 or 2004, I read up to 20 books a year, mostly on my way to work on the bus or in my copious free time not working, since my job was less than half-time. Since working full-time and on salary—meaning no set start or quitting time—priority given to dead tree editions of pretty much any written text went to reading digital ink in the form of weblogs and the delicious articles they link to.

Already this year I've read three books: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by John Robert Greene, [Amazon], Buddhism Plain & Simple by Steve Hagen, and most recently, Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance, and Utopia by Darren O'Donnell. I am currently working my way through Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, and have purchased Dreaming In Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg, which sits patiently on my coffee table.

All the books have reasons why I either read them or bought them: the book about Gerald Ford because he had recently died; the Buddhism book partly on the recommendation of Web Worker Daily but also partly because my girlfriend is a practicing Buddhist (I was reading the book as a Valentine's Day gift to her, but I was afraid she was on to me when she published that); Social Acupuncture on Karen's recommendation; and Wikinomics because Will Pate attended the Wikinomics book launch in Toronto and made note that some consider Tapscott to not be a citizen of the community he writes about. Will calls him a translator and diplomat, but popularizer might be a better term. at about the same time as the Internet, and therefore. He has it right, and those that don't yet understand it or know how to benefit from it, particuarly in the business sense, are the target audience, not people like me who live it. (I bought Dreaming in Code because I have a weak tie to one of the book's protagonists, Ted Leung.)

I intend to write and publish reviews of all books mentioned, but as you can tell I'm already two books behind with a third book soon added to the queue. But this is the year I read book and review them. For now, though, that's a window into what I'm reading and thinking about these days.