Tag: Book

Mobile books

I was waiting for my scooter ride outside Cho Ray Hospital when a peddler approached me. “Want to pick something to read?”. Turned out, she was selling used books, in a box: Cu Chi Tunnel, My Lai Massacre, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, Sorrows of War, Understanding Vietnam…

Those subjects are now as old as the war itself. All healed and pealed, just scars.

When I was in high school, I went up the gang-plank to tour the Logos ship.

This ship carried books and Bibles across the ocean to far-away lands (of heathen). Later, to reciprocate, I volunteered one summer aboard the Doulos (Logos 2.0) ship to W  Africa.  I saw the longing for a better life in those dark eyes. The instant bonding of men in different skin colors. And the no-way-out trajectory of Liberia in the mid-80’s.

Mobile books.

But not up-ward mobile lives.

Now, we have e-books and e-learning.

Open U and open source. I wonder how many of us are taking advantage of free access to advance ourselves.

I wonder how many sales the peddler made yesterday outside the hospital?

I wonder how many patients bought and read about Man’s Fate .

I read so I won’t be alone.

I am reading “Love and Garbage”.

And I appreciate your reading this, so you and I are not alone.

Love, death and garbage will always be with us. It’s an unmovable law. The consolation is, we are not alone in this. Want to pick something to read?

Man who reads

Joan Didion‘s latest book about the death of her child has landed in the top ten of TIME magazine.

Her earlier book, “the Year of Magical Thinking” recalls the death of her husband.

By penning these experiences, she invited us, readers into her private chamber of grief  (saving his shoes, wishing he would come back).

Man reads in order not to be alone.

Reading is listening.

One night, I was alone with Steve Job’s biography whose cover had his blank stare. It felt eerie!

Then on rainy nights, books keep me company.

I could put down one book, just to pick another (then I will be in Peru, with conversations in the Cateral or travel back in time, to Chicago in late 19th century or French country side with Bovary).

It’s all there in black and white.

From Westminster to Wikipedia, we are the most blessed generation, not only for the abundance of  searchable literature, but also for living longer to enjoy them.

Life long learning.

The worst tragedy in life is a wasted mind.

I have no idea how a mighty country like the US  could feel impotent and watch its people (8% at least) sitting idle.

At the very least, get them a library card and have them log in the 10,000 hours (threshold to acquire a new skill set).

Local libraries order mostly low-brow  hard-backs , which perpetuate the cycle (Daniel Steel).

Three cheers to MIT for its radical free online University.

As “rad” as anything has ever happened since the 60’s.

Now just make sure rural broadband and fiber built out be completed.

We don’t want Earth’s billions live longer while remain isolated and ignorant.

In fact, world peace depends on shared assumptions and common ground.

When people agree to disagree, it’s a good thing. At least, they read and understand other’s views and values.

If they read at all.

Man who reads is man who makes peace.  I hope this year is “our year of magical thinking,” i.e. keep the books and lights on, wishing our man would come back and pick up reading where had left it.

Vietnam still loves reading

Huffington Post picks up a piece from Vietnam news, featuring used book shops in present day HCMC.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/used-bookstores-vietnam_n_714522.html

If you don’t know, you would think the city was on wheels. But in some quiet corners, you still find students and researchers actually reading and browsing

just as you would find at a B&N here.

The piece did not mention the rise of e-books, which is very similar to the rise of wikipedia when it overtook Britannica  i.e. used book shops will soon follow the way of Tower Records or note pad when I pad overtook it.

In the piece, we learn that used bookshop owners know their stocks. They serve as knowledge curators.  A prisoner wrote and asked for a list of books to self-reform.

Or some Vietnamese, before resettling abroad, sell all their books to these shops.

The stacks sit there, waiting to be discovered, to come alive.

The joy of reading will never be overtaken by web surfing or DVD watching.

One reads in order not to be alone.

Linearity triggers other parts of the brain, perhaps makes all sorts of connection and link.

Fragments of information finally joined in and mashed up to help one connect the dots.

The same way wiki contributors are helping to shape world’s evolving knowledge.

So used book stores in Saigon stood the test of time: war, post-war, and pre-industrialization.

All sorts of novels translated directly from Japanese, German, East European languages and of course, French.

They are there, dusted everyday, like ancient swords awaiting  for our heroes/warriors.

In this case, peace time has turned swords into plowshares.

It’s time to read, learn, and self-cultivate.

It’s time to build knowledge, to catch up with ROW (rest of the world).

I love old book shops. I happened to be born just a block away from them.

But now the journey for me to get to those shops takes  24 hours.

Still I know they are there, awaiting my next visit.

That’s the thing about books: wisdom that stood the test of time. A loyal friend.

 

E-memoir

Mark your calendar. Summer 2010 will be a bookend event.

It will be Gutenberg-like. It’s the beginning of the disappearance of Revised Print Edition.

It’s Google e-book store, where you can download the latest version of any book. Gone are the paper backs.

Or Large Print for that matter.

Select your own font.

http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/49631-google-plans-summer-opening-for-e-book-store

Our interaction with the pages is now replaced by our interaction with the screen.

A little divided (sight) as opposed to united (auditory, such as Audio books) according to Walter Ong.

Dumb terminal, long-lasting batteries, and unlimited “cloud” storage capacity make all this possible.

Books are now published on demand, or download. Paper or plastic?

Save a tree.

Somehow the image of “the Remains of the Day” (Bezos’ favorite book) came to mind.

A wall full of books, and the grandfather clock, all gone. What are there for the butler to do but writing his e-memoir?

I must admit the tone of that novel brought me back to an era where service is considered noble. And you could only get a glimpse of that now a day at Four Seasons or Nordstrom.

One of my pet peeves at Penn State was when students slowly folded their Collegiate only after  the prof had started to speak.

Today’s equivalent of turning off their e-readers.  Everything non-digital are “the remains of the day”.