What are you reading?

Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Great book so far. Gives case histories of CEOs that took their companies and made the transformation from good to great. Very interesting reading backed up by a lot of supporting data and what was different about the leadership of these CEOs as opposed to the CEOs of just good companies.

It's one of those books that I have to read, yet I am enjoying it very much.

 

Biology: Life on Earth, Left Back by Diane Ravitch, The Annotated Arch by Carol Strickland, Pedagogies of Resistance by Margaret Smith Crocco, Petra Munro, and Kathleen Weiler, What is Curriculum Theory? by William Pinar, Cross-Talk in Comp Theory by Victor Villanueva, and Traditions and Encounters by Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler. Those are my readings I'm going through now, not really for pleasure though, more like mandatory. Oh well. I read some good books last semester, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien was very good.

 

What am I reading? Your post about "What are you reading?"

Seriously, I used to read 3 or 4 books a week from the time I was 5 or 6 years old until I discovered the internet. Now I spend most of the time I would have spent reading in the past on the internet. I read a couple of newspapers every day and I subscribe to serveral magazines but I only end up finding the time to read a book or two a month. Anybody else find that the internet is cutting into their reading time?

 

All except the pre-snooze reading and an occasional weekend afternoon

 

Or, too great a risk to chance the reward?
Is that really a problem? In a societal, global sense it is. Humanity needs risk-takers.
Would you risk everything you have in the world on the flip of the coin even if you won you would win 100 times that which you have? For example assume you have 100K in the bank- if the coin comes up heads you lose it all. If it comes up tails, you get 10million- would you do it?
I wouldn't
But if all I had was 1K, I would risk it to get 100K


Anyway, I'll have to pick it up-sounds like an interesting read.

 

Re: Re: What are you reading?

Very tempting. I am still young enough to earn another $100k but I'll probably never make $10 million. If I won the $10 million in a 50% chance I would never have to do another day's work. What are the stipulations? If I lost the $100k would it also ruin my credit and the ability to borrow enough to get a good start over? Are we talking cash or total assets? If I could risk $100 k cash in the bank and not lose my house, property or my business I would probably take the risk. If the coin flip was between becoming a retired gentleman of leisure or a homeless bum I wouldn't do it.

What if it wasn't a 50-50 chance on a coin flip but a contest of skill that you are good at against a worthy opponent? Like a game of chess against somebody who you beat 55 or 60% of the games you play against him? Or tennis or one on one basketball or whatever? Would you rise to the occasion like a Joe Montana or a Michael Jordan or would you choke with all the marbles on the line?

 

I always try to be reading something by the late Douglas Adams. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is proabably the funniest book I have ever read.

 

I just finished a Stephen Hunter trilogy: "Dirty White Boys", "Black Light" and "Time to Hunt". It's about an ex-marine sniper. A lot of technical guns/ammo stuff. A very good book I read recently is "AFTER". It chronicles several individuals', businesses' and government agencies' reactions to and effects of 9/11/01.

 

"Smartest Guys in the Room".
Just completed this weekend.
Excellent report on Enron.
Should be read by anyone who believes they understand what went on at that company.
The bad guys in my opinion? Kopper and Fastow.
Lay comes across as the doddering fool.
Of course it very may well have been a case of plausible deniability.
"Prince of Providence"
Started Monday.
Story of Buddy Cianci, the colorful Mayor of Providence
Rhode Island, called Louisiana North in some circles.