Posts Tagged ‘reading’

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

For me, 1999 was a difficult year. For the first time in my life, I struggled with an English class. This had never happened before. English classes (book analysis, essays, poems, etc) had always come very easy to me. So, my freshman year of High School I decided to take Advanced English and push myself a bit. Push myself, I did. I was finally reading books that were at and above my level. I was expected to analyze them past the surface level, and it was fantastic. I loved the pressures that were put on me, the fact that if I wanted to do well I would have to go above and beyond what was expected. While this was one of the most difficult classes I ever took (okay, calculus was up there too), after my first year of it, I was even further in love with writing and reading than I already was. To this day, I know that the Advanced English classes I took were the beginning of my career in blogging. Once you get the writing bug…it’s impossible to get rid of.

In the media world, 1999 was a scary thought. Who could forget the hype they created over the end of the millennium? The world was going to end. Poof, money gone, banks destroyed, computers crashing, life as we know it would be no more. People stocked up on water, food and pulled their money into safer places. So what really happened? Well, a lot of people got drunk, the world didn’t end and January 1, 2000 was just another day.

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

In 1997, I was finishing 7th grade, starting 8th grade, and still trying to figure out who I really was (I think we all were at that age). Other than friends, boys and annoying my parents, I had 2 things I knew that I loved: reading and writing. I had a book and my notebook with me everywhere that I went, jotting down thoughts and ideas about every day life. I guess it was my first version of “blogging”. I was not a tech savvy kid, despite going to a school that had a computer lab donated by Steve Wozniak. I mean, I understood computers and knew how to use them, but was never really interested in anything beyond using them for school. I preferred the feeling of writing on paper to writing in Word. Which meant that I constantly had ink on the side of my hand from dragging it across barely dried sentences (one of the pitfalls of being left handed). To this day, I still love writing on paper, but find that I type much quicker than I can write, so my laptop has replaced my notebook (although at night, I do still keep a notepad by my bed for those random thoughts). I think that as long as I keep writing, my creativity will continue. I worry for the day that my hands will no longer cooperate and hope that by that point, there is a solution…

On the topic of reading and writing, 1997 marked the start of one of the most successful book series ever written – Harry Potter. While it wasn’t released in the US until 1998, the book became an instant star in the UK, winning numerous awards and receiving some of the highest compliments from the reviewers. For those who don’t know, this is one of my favorite series of all times and I have actually read all 7 books more than 5 times each. What impresses me most about Rowling (the author of the series) is the drive that she had to write the books, and the passion in which she wrote them. Even more impressive? According to Forbes magazine, she is the first author to become a billionaire from writing books. Now that is a serious accomplishment, and adds a little motivation to anyone out there who has ever been told writing can’t make you rich.

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

1994…The year that I found my new genre of books to love and “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” was created.

As I’m sure you saw from my post about creating books in 1990, I fell in love with reading and writing at a very young age. In 1994, I found mystery novels. I started with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and as the years progressed worked my way up through Diane Mott Davidson’s collections (Chef who solves crimes, how cool!), and Mary Higgins Clark The problem? My overactive imagination often meant that I didn’t sleep very well after…Luckily, that never deterred my love for reading and I still enjoy mystery (with a splash of romance).

Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle…better known as Yahoo! was started by David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. It was originally meant to keep track of their like interests on the Internet. But, they decided to make it available for friends and family. As word began to spread, the users stemmed outside of their contacts and grew rapidly. They experienced their first million-hit day in the fall of 1994, and knew they were on to something. 2 years, 8 investors, 49 employees and a $2 million dollar investment later, Yahoo! officially took the Internet world by storm. This just goes to show you, brilliant ideas do not always start as something phenomenal. All it takes is one idea and the drive to make it happen…

I’d always heard you are what you eat…I disagree. I think you are what you read.

I have thousands of books. Most are in boxes in our garage, but a select 150 or so are gently tucked into the small bookshelf in my bedroom. I dream of having a room just for my books, with floor to ceiling shelves and a ladder on a pole that runs around the whole room someday. But for now, my thousands of books remain in boxes in my garage. It’s sad, it breaks my heart, and I wish I could even get one big bookshelf, one that can hold at least half my collection. We just don’t have the wall space for it.

Anyway, what I do know is if someone were to look through my personal book collection, they would learn a lot about me. Note: Business books don’t count, while I do have many I like, they don’t say nearly as much about me as my personal collection.

There are quite a few books in there that are worn from reading so many times, others that are filled with notes, highlights and thoughts and some that have barely been opened. While I respect books more than a lot of people I know, that doesn’t mean I keep them pristine. Books I love are often worn, torn, written on and beat up from the number of times I have read them and the places they have been. The more I love a book, the more worn it is. There are even a few books that I have had to buy a new one because I beat up the first one so badly…I’m on my 3rd copy of I Know This Much is True and Atlas Shrugged. My notes all go in the original copies, but if I want to re-read it, and take it somewhere, I take one of the newer ones so they don’t fall apart (seriously, the first copies, the bindings are barely on anymore).

Of course, there is an exception to every rule. There is one set of books I have read 4 or 5 times, and still remains in perfect condition. The Harry Potter series. They stay in the house, protected. I feel like if I were to beat those up, I’d hurt their feelings. They need to be nurtured and loved, for fear the magic would just fall out if I was careless (told you I love books).

When I tell people about my collection, I often get the question: So, which book is your favorite? And I can never answer it. I try, but I just keep thinking of others that I couldn’t live without. I guess the best answer would be, it depends on my mood.

When I need uplifting? I turn to either Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) or one of the 7 Harry Potter’s (J.K. Rowling).

With a glass of wine? The Queen’s Fool (Phillipa Gregory) or Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)

Cold and rainy day? I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) or Weep No More, My Lady (Mary Higgins Clark)

What do you read? What books are you passionate about?

And if you’re interested in checking out any of my favorites, here’s the links on Amazon: