Reading Rainbow
December 14th, 2007 by Andy Didyk
Who can forget LeVar Burton, with his inspiring, chop-block haircut or his famous “you don’t have to take my word for it” toss to elementary school students’ review of popular children’s books? While LeVar will always be with me, my parents are both avid and voracious readers of their respective interests, and I’m afraid I must credit them, rather than LeVar, for my insatiable desire to read anything I can get my hands on. But still, it did feel really good to track down an 80’s version of their logo and put it on this blog. Thanks Wikipedia!
I’m currently plowing my way through 1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies. It’s another installment in a fascinating run of historical books (by a variety of different authors) that are gradually turning what we were all taught in elementary school about pre-Columbus times into unfounded, Anglo-centric fantasies. 1421 asserts that magnificent, imperial China discovered the New World and was the first to circumnavigate the globe; Columbus, Magellan, and De Gama were all just following in China’s footsteps. Another great read, 1491, makes the case for the pre-European Americas brimming with advanced civilization and culture, rather than being sparsely populated with savage tribes.
So why the post on reading? The answer is simple. In a world where, as Steve Newton often laments to me, “no one reads long blog posts anymore,” reading across a variety of subjects is one of the things that keeps me successful at my job. Account Directors and Executives, unless they are assigned to one giant account, typically have to deal with a large variety of clients, and within those clients, a large variety of personalities and interests. Being a broad reader helps me to better relate to everyone I come in contact with, and I have to believe that it makes me a better writer as well. Plus, I’m gradually coming to terms with the fact that I am, indeed, a huge nerd (more on that later), so reading for me is just plain fun.
Given China’s booming economy and history of being a resurgent global power, I’d highly recommend we all brush up on our Chinese history and culture. I have more to say on this subject, but I’ll keep it brief this time in order to keep my twittered audience from information overload. Thanks for reading.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 12:04 pm and is filed under communication, marketing, misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Thanks for the link, Andy. As a fellow reader and bona fide nerd, the main thing I learned from my education was to continue learning. So many people I’ve met stopped reading after their formal education. I’m sure that other media will eventually eclipse reading as learning tools. A few years ago, a friend, who is a distinguished professor of literature as well as prolific writer with a number of books to her credit, and I went to see a film called Magnolia. When we left the theater, she turned to me and said, “That film accomplished what great literature once did.” In other words, seeing the film was the same as reading a great novel. We are headed into an interesting time.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
[...] been doing a bit more reading lately than writing. I think that has to do with trying to wrap my head around these tumultuous [...]