Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
There are many myths about Galileo. One is that he invented the telescope. (He didn’t. Hans Lippershey gets the honors. A year afterward, on this date four hundred years ago, Galileo demonstrated his version of the device to merchants in Venice. (The sale price was not a pound of flesh.)
Here’s a little quiz to see how good you are at separating fact from fiction. Jot down which you think are true and which are false:
Continue reading “400 Years Ago Today, Galileo Didn’t Invent the Telescope”
Offering competition in the marketplace is the American way–and the Japanese way too, apparently.
Sony has just announced that it will be adopting an open e-book format (called ePub) to help counter the early lead Amazon’s Kindle proprietary format has taken in the market. Those who buy e-books on Kindle can only read them on Kindle (or iPhone). The open ePub format will allow readers to buy e-books and read them on the device of their choosing.
Continue reading “The e-Book Competition Heats Up”
What challenges do publishers have? Not just a faltering economy and declining reading rates; their problems are legion. To name but a few:
Continue reading “Competition to the Rescue”
Someone recommended to me that at least once a year I should read a book that is over fifty years old. What seems so hot and compelling now may be forgotten and rather pointless ten or even five years from now. Dave Barry, for example, describes the 1960s as an era in which “a nation gets high and has amazing insights, many of which later turn out to seem kind of stupid.” That’s kind of like what many bestsellers turn out to be.
Continue reading “The Presence of War”
I was with a group of friends recently when another common myth of western civilization was trotted out as if it were gospel. “We all know religion has caused more violence and death than anything else.”
“Well, actually, that’s not true,” I ventured.
Heads turned. Mouths gaped. The planet itself seemed to wobble on its axis. “What facts do you have to support that?” said the historian in the group, eyebrow arched.
Continue reading “160 Million”
For a couple of months now, Newsweek has trotted out its new format–new print design and new organization of its content inside. From my reading of the comments, most (usually die-hard, lifelong Newsweek readers) unequivocally don’t like the new format. I’m not one of them.
Continue reading “The New Newsweek”
Planning is deciding what you will do. Yes? No, that’s only half right. In planning, whether personal or organizational, some of the most important decisions you can make are what you will say no to, what you decide ahead of time you will not do. It’s all too easy to simply respond to requests or ideas from others, to be reactive. The problem is that others then set your agenda, not you.
Continue reading “The Art of Saying No”
When I was a new manager, and one who avoided conflict like a cliché, I had a very hard time telling people when some aspect of their performance was poor. So I’d delay and delay until the annual review, and then disgorge all the problems at once to the unsuspecting reviewee. Needless to say, the conversations did not go well.
Continue reading “No Surprises”
John Locke is not just a character on Lost. He’s one of the most important philosophers of the last five hundred years on issues of the self and of political theory. When it comes to identifying how the United States came to be in the first place, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government written in a hundred years beforehand, is a good place to begin.
Continue reading “Behind Every Good Declaration of Independence”
Next week IVP undertakes its annual ritual of taking stock. I don’t mean we will evaluate how well we did or didn’t hit our goals for the end of our fiscal year on June 30. Rather almost all office personnel are commandeered by those in our accounting department and our distribution center to “do inventory.” I and my colleagues will don lightweight grubbies (the forecast is for the high eighties) and partner with our more warehouse-savvy comrades to count books.
Continue reading “Taking Stock”