Long-lasting lit

To join a chorus of “best books of the year”, I want to reflect on my reading life, on what struck me in particular and who left long-lasting legacy in shaping my thoughts

• The Remains of the Day – told from a “downstairs” perspective
• Never Let Me Go – how humanity, esp love, somehow cross-over to robotic life
• The Invisible Man – helps me get “inside” people unseen by society at large
• The Sympathizer – articulates what’s like to play on both sides of the fence
• Munich – there are good people on both sides of any conflict, WWII in this case
• The Veteran – love that transcends race and time. Great writing and twists
• Think-Make-Imagine – we are but a ring in the chain of human evolution and invention, which makes me wonder why some people go off on self-aggrandizing instead of self-effacing
• AIQ + Big Nine = we will need to leapfrog quickly to work machine into our daily lives (think email and Prodigy back 25 years ago).
• The Art of Leadership – just to show that some gets it, while others don’t. Not off-the-shelves kind of skill-set. Acquirable? yes, but mastering? not likely.
• 8-minute organizer – goes well with McChrystal’s theme about start with making your bed right at the start of your day
• A man in full – shows us what’s it like to have and have too much
• Small is beautiful – less is more
• Markings – reflections by someone who hovered over the world and died an accidental death while trying to serve it
• Count of Monte Cristo – in death we find life abundant with a bit of poetic justice sprinkled on it.

In college, there were many required reading. But in life, it’s us who are lonely and lost, and need to “read so I won’t be alone”.

Required reading that have helped me most (that I can distill) are:

• Group communication
• Drucker’s Management series
• Kotler’s Marketing latest
• Cross-cultural ethnography
• Shadow of the Almighty – Jim Elliot biography “He is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”.

In my end, my beginning. Never stop your inquiring mind. Fiercely approach each day like a child, eager to be at the playground. It’s a Wonderful Life. Happiness is within you, not out there or on-line.

Oh, there is also an “out-of-the-box” reportage, ironically, from inside “the Sanctuary of the Outcasts” located near Baton Rouge, LA; about finding humanity in least likely place.