I read as often as possible, usually a minimum of three hours a day. To quote a comment I made elsewhere: “Intellectual expansion and introspective consciousness are two of the most astonishing gifts we are adorned with. I enjoy reading most anything I can get my hands on, in the hope that I can accumulate some small amount of knowledge to help fill the yawning chasm that is my brain. Outside of technology, I enjoy reading philosophy, history, politics, psychology, science, and religion. The depth of human experience available is awesome in every sense of the word”.

Each year a handful of books stand out, last year one of those books was “The Rebel Sell” - http://www.amazon.ca/Rebel-Sell-Culture-Cant-Jammed/dp/0006394914/, I highly recommend it.

I’ll come back and give you a list of the books I’ve read very recently and am reading now. Funny, I just realized I haven’t read fiction in quite a long while. I’m hooked on biographical stuff.

This was supposed to symbolize a key theme from the book she was reading. I remember the English teacher saying, “See, isn’t this beautiful symbolism?

So funny, this reminded me of the scene from Taare Zameen Par, where Ishaan is in the literature class and the teacher makes Rajan read a poem out loud and then asks Ishaan to explain it. And Ishaan gives this great explanation, but it’s not what the teacher wants to hear, so he then calls on some other kid, who gives this boring, regurgitated answer.

I lowve that you went to India and came back with 25 books. This is why we are friends.

I’m going to steal back the copy of Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that I once gave as a gift to my brother.

So when you make something so easy available, people will respond

Really good point. The Better Off book that I’m reading now, I got from what they call the “open source bookshelf” at the Wednesday meditations I attend. =)

although, I’m not just doing dev work anymore… I do a little bit of everything at work. facebook, msn, gtalk… things like that. really though I do technomanagement, with a healthy dose of facebook, msn and gtalk.

was a computer (engineering) student, though there is only a slight distinction between computer (engineering) and computer (science).

interestingly enough, a large portion of development work is spent creating layers of abstraction. which gives me an idea… code poetry, poetry written in a programming language. then you can ask your husband to translate it. =)

one day I shall write about this transformation, when I can do so freely.

I cannot read urdu well, it will take me a while to digest written urdu.

Today when i was browsing through blogs and scrolled down on yours, my partner in crime asked me to scroll back. He wanted to see that did he actually see ” release it” on your reading list. Then he told me,” He must be doing some good developer work.”

Are you?:P

Then i read your post
and now i am thinking why most computer (science) guys tend to avoid fiction/literature?

(you are/were a computer student, right?)
your anecdotes about your English class and symbolism made me look at my husband. Some minds just do not accept abstract ideas and you are really lucky that now you can see the other side.

I would like to hear about this transformation.

PS: can you read urdu?

zainab - you are right, jack and karen made it something interesting. w&g themselves were only half-interesting.

you should write mini-reviews. highlights and key lessons, etc.

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what’s wrong with W&G?