Found a blog post by Chris Guillebeau from Powell's Books the other day and felt a bit inspired. Now many of the things that Chris suggests I have done but it's always a good idea to expand your horizons. Learning is a life long endeavor and I've often felt the need to re-evaluate where I am in life and how I'm progressing both intellectually and spiritually.
Items from Guillebeau's list which I am appropriating for myself are the following: read 30 nonfiction and 30 classic books, support Kiva, learn a language (Arabic), learn three new skills (guitar, off road motorcycle, and one as yet undetermined) and starting a blog (this one.) I'd also like to think that I'll learn the names of every country and their leader but we'll see how that plays out.
Book one, nonfiction. I chose Michael Herr's "Dispatches." The book recount's Herr's experience over 18 months as a journalist in Vietnam. He relates a very sober view of war, self and the impotence of governments to see beyond their own rhetoric and ideas. America tends to be very ethnocentric and fails to see the value in other cultures. A rather odd position given the American ideal of 'the melting pot." At any rate, I'd heard of the book before and happened upon it at a thrift store. An interesting side note, Herr co-wrote the screenplays for Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Scenes and images from both movies can be seen throughout the book, showing Herr's influence on the scripts. Herr's prose is engaging and well paced and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in US History, Vietnam, war in general or in what war does to the men who participate in it.
Book two, fiction. This choice was sort of made for me about 15 years ago and has just now come home to roost as it were. A bit of a sidebar here - Guillebeau suggests "classic" books and this begs the question "what is a classic book?" Time magazine has it's view and the Guardian has it's view on the matter. The there is the Harvard Classics, a different type of classic altogether. Given the excess of ideas out there concerning what constitutes a classic I've decided to set my own standard. The particular book I chose for my second read of the year was given me by a friend nearly 15 years ago - "Sheltering Sky," by Paul Bowles. It just so happens that this book also made one of the classics list previously mentioned so I don't feel too bad about choosing it. The fact that it was already in my possession and I didn't have to purchase it didn't hurt much either.
I got an iPod nano today and have already downloaded a series of Arabic language lessons. I've toyed around with Arabic before and find the language quite fascinating.
I've got a few other irons in the fire at the moment but I'll get to those later. Need to get some sleep tonight before a 24 hour volunteer shift at the firehouse tomorrow.
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