My First 52 books in 52 weeks

When I was ten-years of age my parents moved the family from Manchester, England to Ogmore Vale, Wales. To say it was a culture shock is the under-statement on the century. The Welsh hate the English, and everyone hates somebody different; and here I was a half Chinese Englishman – I decided I needed a plan to conform.

The plan that my ten-year old brain conjured up was to play the class clown. If I defied authority then maybe the rest of the class would admire me and want to be my friend. As it turned out it was a cracking ploy, because from that moment on I was always popular with the other children. The same could not be said for the teachers, however, and I am sure if I gave them a lamp and asked them to rub it they would have wished for the return of corporal punishment so they could give me a good hiding.

I am not proud of my school years in terms of my academia but I am proud of doing what I needed to do to fit in. When I left school and started to earn a pretty penny I fell in love with learning once more. My preferred method of learning was through books and I have always had an insatiable appetite for more paper knowledge.

Recently I found myself in a bit of a predicament. I loved reading that much that I would have a different book for every occasion. I would have one by the toilet for those private moments, one by the right side of my bed, one by the left, one in my travel bag…well you get the picture! I was reading everything and nothing at the same time. I wasn’t getting anything finished and I wasn’t retaining the knowledge properly.

This is why I decided to create the goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks. It is a very difficult task and one that requires a lot of devotion and discipline but I am so glad that I decided to do it, so glad in fact that I don’t think I will ever stop. I have a particular process when I read and I would like to share it with you, as well as the links to the reviews for every book that I read in the next 12-months.

Finding a Book

We barely have any Amazon rainforest left so the world has a hefty supply of pages to leaf through, so how do I select my books? I have a list system on my Macbook and iphone and on this system is a list called “Books to Buy.” Each week I schedule two hours of blog reading and each time someone suggests an inspirational book I add it to my list. When I am reading my books they are always filled with inspirational book suggestions and again these go on my list. I then buy a few of them each month and select the one I want to read based on the goings on in my life at that very moment.

Schedule

The schedule to read 52 books in 52 weeks is pretty simple. I have a look at how many pages my book has and divide the total number by seven days. Then each day I schedule enough time to read my required quota of pages. There has been a pattern of around 40 pages per day and this generally takes me one hour to get through them. To improve productivity I always carry the book and my iphone with me wherever I go, so I can always read a few pages when I would otherwise be staring absently into the air.

Retention of Knowledge

When I read I always have two things handy. The first is a yellow highlighter and the second is my iphone or Macbook. I use the highlighter for highlighting sentences or quotes that interest or inspire me. The iphone and Macbook contain a list that I have specifically created to contain the actions that I make while I am reading the book. Let’s use the first book I am reading this year as an example: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

The book started to delve into the subject matter of Adaptive Unconscious and as it did, my mind started to drag certain memories to the front of my thinking. They were memories where Adaptive Unconscious had played a vital role in my life such as meeting my new girlfriend for the first time. It reminds me to write a blog post about this and so I make a note in the list. Each week when I schedule my goals and actions I look through the book actions and may schedule time to write a blog post about Adaptive Unconscious: Meeting your Girlfriend. I will do some research prior to writing the post which will include re-reading certain parts of the book and this is how I retain the knowledge of the words and meaning that have just shot through my eyes.

If you have any questions on my process for reading then just contact me in the usual way. In the meantime here are the links to the books that I have read as part of my 2012 goal.

52 Books in 52 Weeks: The Index

Book 1: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Book 2: Starting Over by John Gray

Book 3: In The Green Kitchen by Alice Waters

Book 4: Embracing Uncertainty by Susan Jeffers

Book 5: People Skills by Robert Bolton

Book 6: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Book 7: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink

Book 8: Alone on the Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo

Book 9: You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen

Book 10: EGO: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity by Peter Baumann and Michael W. Taft

Book 11: Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation by Steven Levenkron