Nonfiction:
What Would Google Do?
It’s focused on media but the message is essential for anyone who’s work or life relies on the use of information. Chances are that means you….
It could be called a “new economy” book but it isn’t about the future. It’s about the economy we have now.
The people and organizations that are good at working with abundance and distributed control aren’t just winning at a new game, they’re creating value for the whole system — which eventually comes back to the creators.
And I love Jarvis’s phrase (which, ironically, Google itself doesn’t really adhere to): “Do what you do best and link to the rest.”
[Note: That link (like the one for the next book) goes to my Amazon Affiliates account. Amazon doesn't seem to have WWGD in stock. In Canada Chapters does.]
Fiction:
Jeff In Venice, Death In Varanasi
Normally I don’t read fiction, so it says a lot that I even picked it up and actually finished it.
Previously I wrote that Geoff Dyer is “my anti-career hero” (in retrospect I should’ve said “uncareer,” which to “career” is what “unconverence” is to “conference”).To paraphrase Dyer’s protagonist, my admiration is both “a hundred percent sincere and a hundred percent ironic at the same time.”
The “Jeff” in the book, I imagine, is a lot like the “Geoff” who wrote it, but it isn’t just semi-autobiographical, it’s almost autobibliographical: in a way, much of the book seems like it’s about its own becoming.
With the mid-life travel-and-self-discovery elements, this book is sort of an Eat, Pray, Love for dudes who like recursion and sardonic irony (Drink, Laugh, F**k?…).
Recap:
Both Geoff and Jeff (not the one in Venice) are long-run optimists who love meta-level complexity, and whose honesty and realism look to many like sheer cynicism.
There’s a lot of absurdity in our world; if we can’t look at it and laugh and call it what it is, 2010 is going to be a very rough year.
Maybe it seemed like there was a lot of uncertainty and change in 2008 and 2009, but the the ball is just starting to roll.
I’m looking forward to learning and growing (and laughing) through the coming challenges, fully aware of how tough the process will be.
