Books have played a significant role in who I am. There are a number of books that really changed me. There is an even larger number of books I recommend because they have enriched my life.
I grew up in a home that had bookcases in nearly every room. I thought most homes had the compact OED, Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World and the Feynman Lectures in the bookshelves, and everyone had read and loved Fahrenheit 451 and How to Read a Book.
I took it for granted that reading was part of everyday life. Most of my friends read multiple books a month and were in the middle of several books at any given time. I have since learned that a significant portion of the world aren’t readers. This makes me sad because I think books are incredibly powerful.
I love reading and I love books. A house without bookshelves filled with books seems a bit empty. I love physicality of books and recognize that studies have should that people tend to retain significantly more information when reading a paper book compared to using an e-reader. Still, I now prefer ebooks because they are more transportable, searchable, and I every book can have giant print for my aging eyes.
I will admit I have purchased too many books over the years. Even when I have 100+ books waiting to be read, I still purchase new books. Why? One, my immediate interests or needs might bump the new book to the top of the list. Second, is a fear that the book will go out of print and I won’t be able to pick it up at a later date. Third, it might be that buying the book gives the illusion that I will have time to read the book… so it feels a bit like I am buying more time. I know that’s not true, but it sort of feels that way. A number of years ago I started to simplify my stuff. One of the biggest challenges was downsizing my book collection. I discovered that there was a forth reason I purchased books. That being a reader was part of my identity, and that a large book collection was like a badge of honor. These days I only buy books I will immediately read. Whenever possible I get books from the library.
I am trying to record all the books I have read on goodreads, but there are still a lot which are missing. I use an Amazon’s wishlist to keep track of Books to Pickup Someday
Local Libraries
Other Peoples Lists:
- Books Everyone should read – meta list count mentions on a number of reading lists
- The Internet Top 100 SF/Fantasy List
- John Walker’s Reading List
- FogCreek Software Management Curriculum
- Personal MBA
- 100 Best African Books of 20th Century
EBooks / Free Reads
- access foundation great books and the great books index
- Project Gutenberg & GutenMark converting tool
- Free Books for Kindle
- Books free to borrow for Amazon Prime members
- Faded Page: Free books in Canada
- mobileread.com
- feedbooks.com
- Samizdat Press (free tech)
- lulu.com: on demand printing w/ free distribution for ebooks
- dailylit: books by daily email or rss feed
- librivox.org: public domain audio books
- teachingbooks.net
- ck12.org
- sacred-texts.com
- retroread.com: converts google books epub to mobi for kindle use