What Do You Read?
Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets. She was also one of those featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series The Language of Life. In a lecture she gave at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo, NJ in the summer of 1994, she spoke with a group of aspiring writers. She said people always ask for her advice when it comes to being a writer. She said she always asks them, “What have you read in the last year that has really touched you or disturbed you or poke you? If they can’t answer that question, I tell them ˜get busy’. “
When I am coaching someone, I always ask what he/she has been reading. Sometimes the reply is. “I don’t have time to read. Sometimes I get the litany of popular business books. Rarely, someone will tell me about the biography they have just read, or a timeless literature classic, or their favorite poet. Then I get interested.
When I look at the range of titles available in the business section of the Border’s and Barnes and Nobles of the world, I observe countless books that seem to address the same the subjects over and over and over again. Subjects like leadership, team building, how to start a business, how to plan your career, how to get more done have way too many titles. What publishers often position as a new idea is usually an old one that gets repackaged. Granted they need to sell books and I guess the best way to do that is to present tried and true or safe titles written by authors everyone knows that promise hope yet are not controversial. Certainly there are some worthwhile reads here. However, I would suggest that something that really touches, disturbs or pokes you will not come from the business section, but more likely from novels, poetry, and biography. So what are you waiting for? Get busy.
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:25 am
This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title What Do You Read?. Thanks for informative article