To blog reader Gene, I didn’t mean to slight anyone by offering to email my reading list back-channel to another reader. I just didn’t think the world at large cared much about what I’m reading. Since you asked (cajoled?), I just finished “The Race Beat” by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (a loaner from my former boss, Lou Heldman) and started “Travels with Charley” by John Steinbeck (a loaner from Deanna Harms of the Greteman Group). Next I’ll read another loaner, “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova, courtesy of Patty Clark of the Kansas Leadership Center.
Thanks for the tip on “Taking on the Trust” by Steve Weinberg. Coincidentally, I bought it last week. (It’s the story of reporter Ida Tarbell’s quest to bring down John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil.) But I always read borrowed books first so I can get them back to their owners in a timely fashion, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to Ida.
Back to the list: Before those, most recently I’d read Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Mayflower,” “The Worst Hard Time” by Timothy Egan, “Marie Antoinette” by Antonia Fraser, “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, and “Ex Libris” by Anne Fadiman.
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Are you curious about who else is reading the same books that you are reading?
Try using http://www.librarything.com/ .
“LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.”
Indeed, the world DOES care about what you are reading and this is a good way of sharing it.
Miltm, what a very cool site, thanks for pointing it out. Off the top of my head, I’m guessing that at least 80% of the books I’ve read (probably more) came from hearing about it from a friend, seeing it on his/her bookshelf, etc. This site is a neat idea for creating digital bookshelves.