Strategically Communicating

This week’s reading of “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr really makes me sad for our humanity…and for books! I found myself agreeing with the author when he says that one day, books will be rare or obsolete. I love books, and I used to read a lot when I was younger. But these days, I, too, just like the author, have found myself distracted, my attention constantly flitting from one thing to the next; I can no longer sit still long enough to read through a book–or allow myself to be immersed in another world–like I used to.

Carr states in his book that studies have shown that deep reading promotes critical thinking, reflection and contemplation which results in greater comprehension and deep learning. However, “calm attentiveness,” the state we experience while engaged in a book, eludes many of us these days as a result of the amount of multimedia we consume.

In an effort not to lose our ability to think critically and focus deeply (while there are still books around anyway), I thought I’d recommend an article by Ryan Holiday written in 2013: “How to Read More–A Lot More.” This guy reads 5-10 books a month–slowly–and even takes notes for a commonplace book (great idea for ingraining new knowledge into long term memory by the way).

So what’s on your reading list this month (er–I mean after grad school in a couple of years)?