Concentrating better on good materials

It can take a year or two adjusting to using an e-reader, like a Kindle.  We used to have only one or two channels on tv as a kid and the expansion to several hundred went slowly enough that I could get somewhat used to it.  Of course, I have spent many hours clicking through all our channels, sometimes continuing through them all again after rejecting each one once.  Now, I more or less assume, based on experience, that most of the channels at any one time will be broadcasting something I am not interested in.

Books are a little different.  In the past, I lugged them home from a library, knowing I had a limited time to read them or I paid a good price for them, betting the expense would be worthwhile.  Now the cost of getting a book is quite low and the physical weight is minimal.  All 220 books in my Kindle are there to be read and quoted, quotes to be shared without a deadline, all weighing together 12 oz.  It has taken a while for me to be accustomed to knowing what whatever I am reading, I have right at my finger tips many other books, also chosen for possible fun and improvement, that I could be reading instead.

Lately, I have been settling down a little, focusing on a book or a few of them, that I do want to read all the way through.  Paying some attention to a book gives me a chance to notice whether its quality is high and doing something of value for me.

Although I find I pay good attention when driving to an audiobook, I have not trained myself to do that at home.  But fiction such as "Polar Star", Great Courses such as "Myths, Lies and Half-truths of Language Usage" get as deeply into my head as something I read.  So, here is a list of items that have recently been worthwhile during these my declining number of years:

1. Our Husband by Stephanie Bond
2. Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon
3. Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
4. Death by Drowning by Abigail Kearn
5. Your Deceptive Mind by Stephen Novella (Great Course)
6. Thinking: Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
7. Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? by Molly Ivins
8. Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
9. This Will Make You Smarter by John Brockman
10. Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson
11. Inner Peace for Busy Women by Joan Borysenko
12. The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein
13. Flourish by Martin Seligman
14. Better Off Without Him by Dee Ernst
15. Cloaks and Veils by J.C. Carleson
16. The First Twenty Minutes by Gretchen Reynolds
17. Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon
18. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
19. Borderlines by Archer Mayor
20. The World's Relgions by Huston Smith
21. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
22. A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence Krauss

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety