Murakami runs six miles a day, six days a week.

(via The New York Times) In the style of Albert Camus — who claimed that much of what he knew about morality and duty he learned from soccer — Murakami believes that “most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.” Specifically, he believes that writing requires, in order of priority, talent, focus and endurance — all of which find their complements in the habit of running.

Murakami’s latest book is really not that great but I forgive him since I am such a big fan… but his choice of music for running? oh lord“It’s not bad, but it’s sort of ordinary and doesn’t amount to much.” Blah.

In October Slate published an exclusive excerpts from Rose George’s book The Big Neccessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters and I just ordered the book.

From Slate:

It drips on her head most days, says Champaben, but in the monsoon season it’s worse. In rain, worms multiply. Every day, nonetheless, she gets up and walks to her owners’ house, and there she picks up their excrement with her bare hands or a piece of tin, scrapes it into a basket, puts the basket on her head or shoulders and carries it to the nearest waste dump. She has no mask, no gloves, and no protection. She is paid a pittance, if she is paid at all. She regularly gets dysentery, giardiasis, brain fever. She does this because a 3,000-year-old social hierarchy says she has to.

This an old post about the making of O’Reilly animals for the O’Reilly books. Still very enjoyable: I always loved the O’Reilly animal book covers.

From Wired: Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker’s library. A great article by Steven Levy from Wired.

Geek paradise!

  I would have to agree with Tim Bray: Aleksander Isayevich was an influential writer for me. Funny to think about my past reading habits. I grew up in a house where reading (and reading a lot) was just the norm. I constantly read. I remember my mother having to come into my room and turn off the lights past midnight as I was still reading. As I was not a good listener (surprise, surprise) my mother went as far as banning having lights on past a certain hour. Of course that was easily remedied with a flashlight and a cover!

All this to say that the year I picked up One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was transformational for me. I remember reading it and thinking this is amazing, this is amazing…And I was just a kid. I go back to the book every once in a while and I never get tired of reading it. It should be on your bookshelf if it isn’t already.

As I grew up I did not agree with most of Solzhenitsyn’s views but as Tim Bray said so nicely: "But the silly things artists often say shouldn’t be held against the works they leave behind them". I will miss Solzhenitsyn’s writing.

I just ordered Beautiful Code and realized that Greg Wilson is having way way too much fun!

Carol Dweck and Mindsets via Guy Kawasaki

From Publishers Weekly
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: Mindset is "an established set of attitudes held by someone," says the Oxford American Dictionary. It turns out, however, that a set of attitudes needn’t be so set, according to Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford. Dweck proposes that everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as… well, fixed. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure. A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you see yourself as fluid, a work in progress. Your fate is one of growth and opportunity.

One more book for the reading pile!

I used to read 2-4 books a week. My lack of reading these days is driving me crazy so I decided to do something about it: read more. This of course will require discipline, ie pry myself away from my laptop screen to sit down and read! It is possible. I have done it before. So here is what’s on my reading pile for the rest of the week:

• Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. By the way, this is a fantastic book. I will post a review later this week. The publisher has made two of the interviews available online for free: Joel Spolsky and Steve Wozniak. Not my favourite interviews but it will give you an idea of what to expect from the book. The full list of interviewed founders is here.
• Inside The Tour de France by Eric Delanzy. I don’t know why but I am fascinated by The Tour de France…Why are there no women in the Tour de France?
• The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company Really Works–and How It’s Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman. Don’t ask… a friend of mine handed this to me and since it looks fascinating I am compeled to read it.

From Made To Stick:

Mark Twain once observed, “ A lie can get halfway around the world
before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings
true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health
scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important
ideas—businessmen, educators, politicians, journalists, and
others—struggle to make their ideas “stick.”

Recipe for making your ideas stick: "curiosity gaps", simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. A good, easy read it seems. I just started it and I am planning on making it my airplane book for tomorrow’s NYC one day trip. Good reading folks! oh and they blog too.