Introduction
I love books. I much prefer reading a real book than reading on my iPad, Kindle, or God forbid, my phone! I love being able to read page by page, feeling like I’m accomplishing something as the pages at the beginning grow thicker and the end gets thinner and thinner, until there is nothing left but the back cover. I love being able to flick through the pages semi-randomly. I love the way it feels in my hands as I turn the pages, and my Kindle just can’t replicate the smell of a newly purchased book.
I love the books sitting on a shelf in my little library as a record of the ones I’ve read cover to cover, the ones I lost interest in, and the ones I never even started. I enjoy browsing through someone else’s book case, seeing what interests we have in common, interest I never knew they had, and searching for interesting titles otherwise unknown to me. You can discover a lot about a person by the books they read and keep on display.
In my younger days I could lay in bed for an entire weekend reading my favourite sci-fi fantasy authors, Piers Anthony, David Brin and Patrick Tilley amongst others. Unfortunately I lost a sizable portion of my fiction library when I moved interstate, and a friend who I had entrusted to look after them for me gave them away just one week before I returned for them.
For a few years now, reading has been on my back burner as the daily task of etching a living slowly took more and more of my time. I hadn’t given up completely, but I was only reading the minimum required to pick up the skills I was looking for. I still prefer a good book for information and study than an electronic screen. I find it easier to concentrate with a book rather than my computer monitor with 25 different browser windows open as I hyperlink from one topic to the next.
These days, I find I can’t read a book from cover to cover in one sitting. But I rarely watch a full movie in one sitting either! So I have now changed my reading habits, setting aside specific time to relax and enjoy some quality time with a good book every day as part of my nightly bed-time ritual. I put my headphones on with instrumental music and binaural-beats playing, that help with studying, meditation and relaxation. I read a real book, not an electronic screen, for about 20 minutes or so. Then I turn off the light and meditate for about the same amount of time with the music still playing. By the end of my mediation I am really quite relaxed, and able to drift off to sleep relatively quickly.
In my reading list I am including book reviews for the books I have finished reading. You won’t find any sci-fi fantasy books here, but you will find books about business, marketing, money, personal development and any other books that I read relating to my new-entrepreneurial journey.