I’m currently reading three books. As I was thinking about which one I wanted to read last night I realized that I am reading each of the books in different formats. And not just in different formats, but from different sources.
When I was younger, finding and reading books was a pretty straightforward thing: I’d ride the bus to the library on a Saturday morning, pick out some books, take them home and read them. Usually I would just make a stack and read from the top down. As I got older, the number of libraries I could visit increased, and eventually I expanded into bookstores. Buildings with books in them are still among my favorite places to “waste” time.
It’s not nearly as straightforward today.
The first of the three books I’m reading is The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander. I picked up this fantastic book based on a recommendation from Alicia Dudek during a tour of her Empathy Systems Co-Lab (a lab in the School of the Possible). Based on Alicia’s description of the book and the influence it had on her, as well as the obvious connection to the School of the Possible, I decided that I’d like to get the book and start reading immediately, so I did. You may have guessed, I’m reading this book on my Kindle after purchasing it from amazon.com.
The next book on my list is Interviewing Users by Steve Portigal. I wasn’t looking for this book specifically, but rather was looking for something related to experience design and user research. I’m fortunate to have access to Safari Books Online through the day job and do my best to take advantage. Just like browsing in a physical bookstore, I browsed the Safari “shelves”, picking up a volume here and there to flip through it, read the blurbs, check out the author. I ended up with Interviewing Users in part because it looked to be straightforward and well written, and in part because I’m familiar with Steve Portigal through his Twitter account and other online writings. So this one I’m reading in the Safari Books Online app on my iPad Pro.
The last book is Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy from Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. The “intangible economy” has long been on my mind, as has been the future of capitalism, and plays quite a central role in the work of tib(na) labs. The book was mentioned by Bill Gates on his book review site, which I learned from Tamarah Usher when she shared it on LinkedIn. I knew that this was a book I needed to read, but not necessarily something I needed to start immediately and not necessarily something I needed to own a copy of. Which, of course, means library. I checked the local library collection (on line, of course) and saw that it was available in a print edition. For this particular book I think I would have preferred an ebook, primarily so I could save highlights and add notes and bookmarks. (Things which are, for understandable reasons, frowned upon by the library in their physical books.)
Three books, three sources, three formats. And this really just scratches the surface of the options available today. Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The more ways that books can be made available, the better my chance of being able to read them all. Well, maybe not all of them. But any of them that I want to read. Which is all of them.
no straight lines 