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The subject of this book had me a little turned off . . . capturing pandas from their wild and natural environment to bring them back to a zoo in the states so that scientists could learn more about them. But, once I got over that, I found it to be an amazing story about a widow who sets out to pursue the dream of her dead husband by travelling to the remote western region of China to capture a baby panda. No one believes she’s capable of going through with it because of her sex and her background, a high class partier from New York. It’s her fight against her many critics and her determination that made me keep reading but her love for China and its people really opened up my eyes to this enormous country we are about to explore.

Yeah, Yeah…what am I doing reading another business book just after the very first one that I’ve very read in my life? Well, I enjoy them…they seem to have found me at a perfect place in my life and my role at Vertical Media. In analyzing a few key rules that Google plays by, Jeff Jarvis explores how business and culture could apply the same rules and really revolutionize our world. The first half of the book establishes the “rules”, while the second half applies them to various segments of society. Imagine if Google ran the media, our utilities, airlines, banks, and even education and government? Although Jarvis doesn’t dive too deeply into an analysis at each level, this book is an incredible tool to rethink the very roots of business and life as we know it. Put what you know and expect aside…and be ready to create open, trusting relationships with your users…oh yeah, and be sure that they are in control of your product at every step of the way. Because they are gaining more and more control than they ever have had…and its a great thing!

I was initially directed to this book about a year ago by Tim Bradshaw, President of our company, Vertical Media. Initially, he requested this book as it has a chapter addressing a goal of ours at Vertical Media – employee ownership. Of course, I will be picking that specific chapter apart in the months ahead as I prepare a plan to make that a reality. Yet, what I did not expect is how much of the rest of the book could apply to our work. The ideas, concepts and achievements of this simple design/build firm in Martha’s Vineyard are inspirational. If you have any interest in how to create a sustainable business that is deeply woven into a community, this is must read. This is the first truly business book that I have ever read in my life. I can only hope that we achieve a portion of what the South Mountain Company has done for its employees, clients and the surrounding community where it thrives.

Dreams From My Father is a beautifully written memoir about the self discovery years of a fatherless African American. It just happens to be the story of our current president as well. Barack leads us through the early years of his life growing up in loving households with his white mother and Indonesian step-father in Indonesia and with his white grandparents in Hawaii, where the color of his skin didn’t define who he was. But something was missing . . . his father. And because he isn’t there, Barack is left to create an image of his all knowing and powerful Kenyan father through the stories told by his mother and grandparents. As he gets older and eventually moves to California for college and then on to Chicago to pursue a career in social organization, he is faced with presumptions and expectations of who he should be as an African American. It isn’t until he is accepted to Harvard Law School and long after he hears of his father’s death that he decides to return to Kenya to discover his roots and meet the other half of his family that he has never known. In Kenya, he meets his many brothers, sisters and extended family and learns of the real struggle and hardships that defined his father, who felt the same disconnect and judgment from his own father. This is an inspiring story about self discovery and the drive to help others in need, shining light onto the events and experiences that defined Barack Obama as a young man.

I started this book about two weeks ago and simply haven’t had the time or energy to dig too deep into it. I had only read about 80 pages before this past weekend and had to keep reminding myself what was going on each time I picked it up. However, I picked it up again last night and just finished it.

This book came to my attention as we have been delving a bit into the idea of traveling to India at some point in the future, as well as a recent viewing of Slumdog Millionaire. Although a piece of fiction, it explores the real-world modern day India wanting to grow up, and catch up, with the ways of the West. The book is delivered through the eyes of one man trying to make something of himself in sea of men trying to do the same thing. It was a great first read into the depths of a modern day India as it struggles to find itself in the World.

On yet another visit to the bookstore on a Queenstown afternoon, I stumbled across this book and started reading the first few paragraphs. Now, of course, I’ve known that Lance had this book out there for quite a while now, but I had never really thought that I’d pick it up. Yet, there was something in the first two paragraphs that peaked my curiosity…the arrogance! Although Lance is a very proud man, he starts to grow on you, and you even start to realize that we should all be a bit more self-confident as we take on life!

Now, if you are looking for something extremely deep with earth-shattering realizations about life, this really isn’t it. However, it IS an incredible account of how a remarkable athlete in an “unknown” sport (to Americans) fought against cancer and emerged with a new purpose in life.

We all know the general story of Lance Armstrong, his battle with cancer and his multiple wins of the Tour de France. Surprisingly, the history and knowledge of Lance’s early days were a fairly close mirror to my own. Although not a champion cyclist, I felt like I actually had a childhood similar to Lance’s – all the way down to the Hamburger Helper (thank’s mom!).

Cancer was also a long overdue topic that I was glad to gain a little knowledge of during this read. You’d think that having lost so many loved ones in my family to that ugly disease, that I’d have picked up at least something along the way. Even though the book only touches surface level items of cancer as Lance takes it on, it opened up my eyes to so much that I should have already known.

And, of course, the book was extremely motivating to get out and ride the bike. The day after finishing the book, we went out for one of our favorite local rides, Skyline to Fernhill…and I’ve never ridden that uphill as fast as I did that day!

I remember bits and pieces from a high school history class about Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, but learning about them again through a historic novel made the era much more interesting. The novel is written from the perspective of Anne’s younger sister, Mary, who is in fact Henry VIII’s mistress for about five years before Anne takes her place. It makes Anne out to be a dreadful, selfish woman that you want to feel bad for, but can’t help from despising. Mary on the other hand, although immature and ignorant in her younger years, is easier to relate to. She follows her heart instead of her greed and is able to eventually escape the power hungry ways of the court, marry for love and live in the country. I think the book would appeal to most women and not to many men, but I thought it was a fascinating story and very entertaining way of learning about England in the sixteenth century.

I picked this book up at our favorite little independent cinema in Arrowtown – Dorothy Brown’s.  This one was finally purchased during an intermission (yes, they still exist) as I had found myself continuing to pick it up and reading the back cover week after week.  I had no background or preconceptions other than what is on the back cover:

“Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for a whole year, Tiziano Terzani – a vastly experienced Asia correspondent – took what he called ‘the first step into an unknown world…It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: It was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.’ Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.  Consulting soothsayers and shamans wherever he went, he grew to understand and respect older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity.”

This was an incredible book that explored three areas of interest to me.  The simplest was the geographical and cultural information for a region of the world that I hope to be in before the end of this calendar year.  It was great to get a first hand account of specific areas and towns that we may need to put on our list to visit.  The second was the slow demise of Eastern traditions as Southeast Asia races to become more Western (the new sign of success!).  And, lastly, was the personal investigation of these ancient traditions by Terzani as he tries to grasp spirituality, fate and leaving things to chance.

Set in the 1800s, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan portrays life as a woman in China when foot binding is a common practice, the size of a woman’s feet determines her fortune and future, and an arranged marriage is for the sole purpose of benefiting the family. There isn’t much choice in the life of a nineteenth century woman in China, and it’s a pity, according to the culture, that the woman wasn’t born a man.

But there is one method of escaping it all . . . through nu shu writing, a secret written language that only exists between women. The story follows two young girls, joined as latong (a friendship bound by contract, literally meaning “old same”), who experience childhood, foot binding, marriage, children, and death together through their nu shu writings.

Beautifully written, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fascinating novel about friendship, love, deceit, and the hardships of being a woman in nineteenth century China.

Our flatmate Ali brought this book home from the Queenstown library. She didn’t know anything about it and picked it off the shelf “just because.” I didn’t mean to read it actually but one rainy Friday afternoon I picked it up and by the time I put it down I was about half way done.

The storyline is simple . . . an American girl, Laura, studying art in Italy falls in love with an Italian chef. The twist . . . the man she falls in love with, Tommaso, and the Italian chef, Bruno, are actually two different people and best friends as well. To try to win Laura’s heart Tommaso needed the skills of a talented chef and talked his best friend into secretly cooking, while Tommaso took the credit, for Laura. All hell breaks loose when Laura finds out that she was actually in love with Tommaso’s cooking, and therefore Bruno, and not Tommaso at all. It’s a quick read and I almost had the sense that I was watching a movie as I read it.