On Words and Business

Thanks to Robert Darnton, the director of Harvard’s libraries, for a book about books:  The Case for Books

As he wrote in Publisher’s Weekly last week: “I’ve been invited to so many conferences on ‘The Death of the Book’ during that past decade that I think books must be very much alive. The death notices remind me of my favorite graffiti, inscribed in the men’s room of the Firestone Library at Princeton University:

God is dead.  –Nietzsche

Then, added in another hand:

Nietzsche is dead.  –God

The book is not dead. In fact, the world is producing more books than ever before…”

This is a great place to get the scoop on business books: Top Shelf Reading Picks

There are too many good ones out there to choose your next one without some guidance.

Just finished reading this very interesting book Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, and Robert Cialdini.

It’s a quick read and enjoyable. One of my favorite chapters was on naming things (products, services, projects). Look for the story on Dennis the dentist (or demolition worker).

50 years old today!

Read about it on NPR…

Happy birthday to Noah Webster the American lexicographer born on this day in 1758.

When you think of dictionaries, you think Webster.

Unless you’re a reference book wonk like me. In which case you also think of Samuel Johnson. But today isn’t his birthday.

As a lover of books, it pains me to write in a book. I had to do it when I worked in publishing (to note changes and updates for subsequent editions), but other than that and a brief time in college when I thought highlighting text would help me study, I’ve never been able to do it.

Books are precious to me and within the past two weeks, I’ve broken the spines of two books I’ve been using a lot for reference. This is simply evidence of both love and importance to me, but still painful.

What do you hate to see done to a book?