Reading habits

I have a bad Amazon habit...

I've told myself that I won't order more books until I've read all the ones I have from before, but when those books are on topics like quantum mechanics and feminism, keeping that promise to myself has turned out to be hard. Not to mention that reading anything at all has turned out to be hard as a Local JCI President...there's just too many other things to do...

I have spurts of random interests when I decide to buy all the books I can find on Amazon on a certain topic. Ok, not all the books, but enough to feel that "ok, if I read these, then I'll know what its all about". Last year two of these spurts were as mentioned quantum mechanics and feminism. I then realised that quantum mechanics actually is physics, and feminism - yeah there's a reason I hadn't already read all those books. I'm absolutely proud of being a feminist, but the thing I feel with books that broke new ground 50 years ago is that the ground has been broken and what the books are saying have been incorporated into mainstream thinking. And that's excellent, it means the book really made an impact, but it also makes for an unmotivated Solveig.

Other interests last year that made an impact on the content of my bookshelves:

• Russian language (ya khasho champanska)
• Modern Russian history (still reading those books, especially Orlando Figes and books on current oil politics)
• Modern African history (I actually read those books, yay!)
• Philosophy of Ethics (I love Alasdair MacIntyre, but his books aren't easy reading so I'm still working on them)
• Israeli military development (nope, not read)
• State building and how to save failed states (read some...)
• general stuff on leadership, networking, personal development

Some of my book habits are good, some are bad. I tend to read about six books at a time, which I think of as a good habit. I need one book to relax with, one book on politics, another for inspiration on leadership issues, then its the book I'm reading for the training I'm planning to give in August, then its the book on international finance I just never managed to finish but still want to read now and then....and on and on and on...

A bad habit is that I never remember what I've actually read. To help me remember which books I've actually read (yeah, that's an issue...) I've one of those neat new moleskine book journals where I note down the basics about each book, and then I have another (also moleskine) where I write more substantial notes about the books I really want to remember. Writing book reviews here on my blog is also a great way of getting more out of a book as it forces me to make up my own opinion about a book and dig out the important points. I also make lots of notes in my books, with various colored pens. Which can be fun, as I've sometimes grabbed a book I thought I hadn't read yet, only to come about halfway to find lots of my own notes...therefore the moleskin book journal (which is a pretty recent acquisition).

Today I got 5 more books from Amazon (bad, bad Solveig). "Beware of Small States" by David Hirst (I need to stay up on Middle East politics!), "The Diamond Cutter" and "It's your ship" (both recommended by brilliant Tony Friede and both on leadership theories in practice), and Peter M. Senge's "The Fifth Discipline" on learning organisations (I'm fascinated by organisations and have been since my student years, both small and large, from government level to JCI and family level, how do they really work and how do we make them work better?). The last is actually two books, so that makes five! And I'm sure Daniel will be very happy to know that at least 4 of the books are exceptionally large, completely justifying the new Billy bookcases we have to buy either way...

...and I'm already waiting for my next Amazon package  ;)