The first book using the book blog technique throughout is finished. "Guns, Germs and Steel" is a great book to experiment with this process because of the volume of information and the interrelated factors that culminate in a simple thesis. Writing short summaries for each chapter as dramatically improved memory retention and synthetic thinking within Diamond's framework. An additional bonus is that I have a repository of information in my own words should I wish to revisit the book. Finally, because I'm consciously thinking about how I will summarize as I'm reading, I'm finding myself being able to organize information on the fly very efficiently.
Enough cannot be said about having a formal system to think over what I've read that day and put in my own words. Reflecting and ruminating on information is much harder to due informally, and overall I've found it nebulous and inefficient (at least for non-fiction; Rendevous with Rama is a great fiction read, but I don't feel as compelled to jot something down for it, probably because isn't steeped in much symbolism).
The book blog as been a big success and I'll continue it. I've just picked up two books that I'm very excited to read, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan and "Oracle Bones" by Peter Hessler (I was tempted to also get "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence", but three books would be overkill). I picked up Omnivore through a recommendation from Slate.com and I'm interested to learn more about industrial agriculture after learning it's importance in GGS. I bought Oracle because I want to learn more about China because Diamond's case study in GGS was underdeveloped and had me interested in China's political unification. I may try to write up shorter summaries/my thoughts this time around, but on the other hand I like having a detailed account of "Guns, Germs and Steel."
Port-mortem post is the first of a new month, weird.
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