When I read a book, lately I’ve been very diligent about going back and reviewing some of the key points on each chapter. After much reading, I found that sometimes it is hard to find passages I highlighted and might want to come back later. So I keep a running list of notes on the book itself.

Words I’ve never seen, new reading material, and comments on each chapter are the 3 main types of notes I take. Some of my books have sections highlighted, underlined, or starred and this helps a lot when revisiting the books. But you can only scribble so much on the margin. The lack of space in the margin and the tedious task of flipping through pages I’ve already read when I want to review something, pushed me to come up with a this very simple review-as-you-go method.

Whenever I start a new book now, I take a big block of post-it notes, the ones that are like 4×6. I then take one post-it and stick it on the inside cover, then one at the end of each chapter. The one behind the front cover serves me to write down words I don’t know. The one after each chapter makes it easy to write a few notes to summarize what I’ve read. If needed, sometimes I add more pages as I go.

Don’t get me wrong, I still write all over my books. Some people consider scribbling on books somewhat of an irreverent practice, but I don’t care; it helps me retain more content when I read. I wouldn’t for example write in a nice dictionary, encyclopedia or coffee table book. But all other types of books go.

Want to compare notes? check out what I’ve been reading, what’s on my list, what I have waiting on my shelf and some of the reviews I’ve written:

Current list:

• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. (about 1/2 way now, could not hold my attention too well. will probably come back to it soon.)
• Letters to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris. Follow up to End of Faith
• The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins. (I just picked this back up. Like BNW it wasn’t very engaging… until now jun 08)
• Into Thin Air, John Krakauer
• Born Standing up: A Comic’s life, Steve Martin.
• The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. Andrew Keen.
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. James Surowiecki.
• The Know it All, A.J. Jacobs
• The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky.
• Life Expectancy, Dean Koontz.
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada, El coronel no tiene quién le escriba

Reviews:

• God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens.
• The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
  The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris.
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner. (Completed in April, review pending)

Overtime I also have read tons of books which I did not review, here’s a laundry list I update as I remember:

• 1984, George Orwell.
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.
• Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.
• By H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, War of the Worlds.
• By Stephen King, Four past midnight, Dreamcatcher.
• By Dean Koontz, By the light of the moon, Odd Thomas, Fear Nothing, Strangers, The Face,
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cien Años de Soledad,
  
• The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway.
  

Also considering:

• The future of an illusion, Sigmund Freud
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Lord of the Flies

I am constantly in search of new books. Whether I go to Barnes & Noble, or Borders I’m always looking for the next thing to read. I usually take a photo of the books I want to get when I browse through the bookstores I visit. You can see some of those photos on Flickr, in this album. If you have a suggestion for me, please feel free to send me a note, or if you’d like to comment on any of the books I have in here, feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for stopping by!

Woot! another book read, onto the next one soon. First I thought I’d give you my take on this one.

The Year of Living Biblically. One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

A.J. Jacobs is hilarious, this medium sized hardbound will keep you reading if not for its insights, at least for its light tone and comical nature; its hard to put down. It is a funny memoir that takes Jacobs, and sometimes his family through a year of radical changes in lifestyle. You are quickly exposed to the determination that AJ musters to bring you the results of this crazy experiment.

I must admit that the wide range of topics in this book touch on a lot of recurring themes in my life. The search for truth, the notion of spirituality, the reason behind ancient customs, to name a few all surface constantly in my life. Until I was 12 or so, I was raised Catholic, the whole shebang; kneel, sit, stand, pray, sing, eat crackers, rinse and repeat. Then after several years of freedom from religion, I chose to become a Christian. For over four years I was a firm believer in Christ. I participated in a non-denominational Christian church extensively, to the point that you could find me with some friends on the corner of Main street preaching to anyone that would listen and some that wouldn’t about Jesus. That’s all in the past now and perhaps topic for another discussion later on, but I wanted to point out that I’m not unfamiliar with religion, especially Christianity and Judaism. It is perhaps this familiarity with religion, faith and all that comes rolled up in that pacakge that sparked the desire to read this book.

The book has a strong contrast to Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith which advises us (and I agree) to stop believing everything you are told without demanding real evidence from a source other than that which demands your faith. A.J. on the other hand must follow almost everything he is told by the Bible and his wise guy circle as I call it –a large group of experts that help him clear up some cryptic biblical stuff. Lots of times he is told to just go along with it. A.J. opens up by explaining how he’s going to do exactly what the title implies; live biblically for a year. Each chapter is a month and the whole book is narrated in journal style highlighting the most important days. Jacobs constantly is at odds with things that the Bible tells him to do and how he feels about it.

He takes us through his visit to the Holy Land, to visit his crazy uncle Gil, all the way to a meeting with Jimmy, a snake handling preacher in Knoxville, Tenessee. I love the way he enthusiastically tells a story and I lost count of how many times his narration of the ordeals made me laugh out loud. Having lived under rules from the Bible for years at one point, I can only admire Jacobs for actually completing a full year and then some of this grueling project. Julie, his wife also deserves credit if only for putting up with the lunacy of this undertaking, most of it while pregnant with twins! That’s love right there.

I don’t want to tell you much more about the book, it truly is worth reading, it all goes by quickly because of the way it is written. He begins with 72 pages and 700+ rules collected after reading the Bible from beginning to end. Towards the end of the journey, he collects over 100 books on biblical law, tradition, cooking and other relevant topics that help him discern these nutty laws. I think this is a great insight into what your life might be like if you truly tried to live in accordance to the Bible.

Here’s one of my favorite days. Simply because of the way it starts:

Day 181, afternoon. I was on the subway today, sitting a few seats down from a Buddhist monk. He looked at me, with my white raiment and bushy beard, I looked at him, with his orange robes, and we exchanged a knowing nod and smile.

It was a great moment. I felt like I’d been let through the velvet rope at a holy nightclub.

On another one of my favorite passages he actually stones –if you can call it that, an old guy in NY. It cracked me up.

I think the great sense of humor the A.J. displays is a big part of what gets him through this endeavor. Coincidentally as I found out just today when I finished this book, he is also the author of another book that has been in my sights, The Know-It-All, and the now famous article My Outsourced life. If you haven’t read that article, I recommend you take a peek, I read it a long time ago on Steve’s website, and it is definitely funny and informative. On a side note, lately have been actually testing the whole concept of outsourcing your life; mainly thanks to that article.

Two thumbs up for this book and its author, I now want to read his other book, The know-It-All.

Into the Wild was touching, sad, inspiring and mostly thrilling throughout. At the end in a couple parts I must admit that my eyes swelled up. Krakauer does a great job of explaining what Chris must have been thinking. I enjoyed th narrative of the book and how Jon mixed in his own memoirs into the story. I can’t help but feel compassion and comradeship towards Chris McCandless. He did what we all talk about around the water cooler, but very few of us ever do or even try; live your dream. Unfortunately for him his adventure as you find out in the book, was not successful. At least not by most standards. Please don’t think I’m spoiling the story, his tragic ending is revealed before the book even starts in the Author’s note in the First Anchor Books Edition, Feb 1997:

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.

As I read the book I kept thinking to myself “I know what he must be thinking now” or “I bet I know what he felt right then” and the truth is that Jon’s writing makes you believe this; he makes you think you can understand what was going through Chris’ head. In all reality, few of us will probably fully understand the thoughts and emotions driving Chris as he sets off in a canoe down the Colorado river, or when he embarks on his last trip into the wild.

The book is easy to read and I found myself immersed in it right away, I was almost a third of the way into it when I put it down for the first time and I completed it in a couple more sittings. Some of the chapters begin with a simple map of the area which you are about to travel through. Constantly I found myself flipping back to review the maps to see where McCandless was and this gave me a great idea of the relative distances he traveled. Sometimes he made his way through on foot, other times hitchhiking but I absolutely think that if he had the choice, he would have used his little Datsun all the way to Alaska.

Half dozen pages over 200, the book is definitely easily digested in a weekend and I definitely recommend it. Most of the books I like give me a new piece of the puzzle to the great experience of life; this was certainly not an exception. I’ll spare you the details of the emotions stirred and the dreams that it evoked in me, but I can tell you that I would recommend it to anyone. Seems like I feel that about all the books I actually finish reading. Besides the new perspective in life that it presented, I was introduced to a new author. Jon Krakauer also has written other well known books that have now been added to my list, namely Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven.

There are a lot of pictures on flickr on the topic of Chris McCandless, and the story that became this bestseller. Here are links to some of the ones I found interesting; read some of the comments to understand more if you haven’t read the book.

by Akfirebug, Into the Wild set

by Chriso2000, Chris McCandless. Jon mentions this picture on his book, and this flickr member has several other ones on there.

There’s also a movie for the book [movie]Into the wild[/movie]

Hey, anyone want to join me on this reading adventure? If you want to read any of the books I have listed and want someone to discuss them with, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll be happy to do some talking about them with you as we read them. Or use the comments on my posts to voice out your thoughts, opinions and the like, I promise I’ll respond to each comment.

I was sick a good part of last week and earlier this week so I got plenty of time to read while the flu got the best of me.

I have now completed two more books directly off the list I posted earlier this month:

Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer and The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.

I was initially going to post my commentary for both books all in one article but I thought that each deserved their own little post. If you’re interested on my thoughts about the books, you can read them here and here respectively.

So last year I planned on procrastinated about giving you a list of the awesome list of books I had in my reading list. Without further ado, here’s the list of what I plan to read in early 2008.

Each of the titles links to Amazon, just in case you want to buy the book; in the order in which I intend to read them, here’s my list.

…actually the first three I’m reading concurrently.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris. I heard about it on one of the podcasts I subscribe to. I actually can’t find which one of my dozen or so podcasts I got the tip from, but they recommended 3 books; I started with this one. Consisting of 221 pages, with an epilogue and an after word adding about a dozen pages, it has been a breeze to read thus far. I’m on page 164 and should be finished by mid week next week.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferris. I am also in the middle of reading this awesome piece of work. It is a motivator, if you are yearning for change you should read this. I’m taking it one chapter at a time because it calls for specific stuff you should do. Informal exercises call for action which makes the reading an interactive experience. As with most good books, a lot of the narrative is very down to earth and much of the “how to” in this book just makes sense.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Somehow subconsciously, I bought this and the 4 hour workweek at the same time; I think I picked up the tip subconsciously from one of my daily RSS reads. If the 4 hour workweek is the “why” this is the “how.” GTD has been making waves for a long time now. This is the book that could change your life if you are a procrastinator like me or just simply want more out of life, but aren’t sure how to do it — whatever *it* may be.

The rest of the books are on my nightstand ready to be cracked open soon. Mostly purchased out of recommendations either by friends, bloggers or bestseller lists. In the order which I intend to read them on:

- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. The cover reads “In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself….”

- The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs. The comical cover of the Author dressed in ancient costume, holding a coffee cup resembling a Starbucks Latte on one hand, and the 10 commandments on the other, expands on the title with this: “One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible”. I just have to read this.

- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. This is an older book (1955), controversial in topic even today. One of those that many people say is a must read. Wikipedia says: “The novel is both internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the book’s narrator and protagonist Humbert Humbert becoming sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl named Dolores Haze.”

- God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens. In my ever persevering search for truth, this makes #2 on that group of 3 books I mentioned earlier.

- Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. During high school I managed to skip reading this classic. Huxley’s essays caught my attention some time ago, and this is the most popular and renowned. So I think it also falls into the “you should read this” category. It describes a Utopian society and Wikipedia further describes that after the utopia state has been reached… “The irony is that [Utopia has] been achieved by eliminating many things that humans consider to be central to their identity — family, culture, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful drug taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies. Additionally, stability has been achieved and is maintained via deliberately engineered and rigidly enforced social stratification.”

- The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Sam Harris, opens his after word for The end of Faith, with a long quote by Richard Dawkins. And this is the 3rd of those three books I mentioned earlier. I can’t wait to get to it, that is why its at the bottom of the list; hopefully the motivation to read it will push me through the previous books.

That is it for now. I intend to keep a small log for each of the books as I read them so stay tuned if you’d like to know what I think of each one as I go through them. I would like to be done with these by mid February, hopefully some of your feedback keeps me motivated. Do you have suggestions for the next list?