I can understand what people who have a shopping addiction are going through. I just bought three new books today, The Dharma Bums, The World is Flat, and Blink. I felt that exciting rush when I cracked open the first one and read the first line. It was The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. The line was this: “Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down with my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated the clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara.” People just don’t write like that anymore. In fact, no one has ever written like Kerouac.

All three of the books I picked up have something in common. They have been said to have changed people’s lives. According to most of the reviews, all three of these books have had an impact on our country in some way.

Jack Kerouac pioneered a movement that changed the face of literature and art forever and opened readers’ eyes to a generation of men who were beaten but not defeated.  The Dharma Bums tells about his venture into Buddhism and self-discovery.  Reviewers of this books have said it changed they way they look at life, at material possessions, at money, and inspired them to pay more attention to what really was important.  I’ve read On the Road and most reviewers say that Dharma Bums is much better.  I can’t wait.

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is one of those books I already know is important without even reading a word of it.  WV State Department of Education is pushing for 21st century learning skills and this book is one of the essential texts for understanding how much our world has changed in just the past few years and what we can do to prepare to become 21st century learners.  This book has been out for several years and I already feel like I’ve missed something by not reading it.

Blink is another one that I know is important.  Who can resist the title: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.  It’s tough for me to explain what this book is about, so I will recruit my amazon.com announcer friend to do it for me.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Blink is about the first two seconds of looking–the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of “thin slices” of behavior. The key is to rely on our “adaptive unconscious”–a 24/7 mental valet–that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea. Gladwell includes caveats about leaping to conclusions: marketers can manipulate our first impressions, high arousal moments make us “mind blind,” focusing on the wrong cue leaves us vulnerable to “the Warren Harding Effect” (i.e., voting for a handsome but hapless president). In a provocative chapter that exposes the “dark side of blink,” he illuminates the failure of rapid cognition in the tragic stakeout and murder of Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. He underlines studies about autism, facial reading and cardio uptick to urge training that enhances high-stakes decision-making. In this brilliant, cage-rattling book, one can only wish for a thicker slice of Gladwell’s ideas about what Blink Camp might look like. –Barbara Mackoff –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Sounds great doesn’t it?  Amazon users only gave it 3 1/2 stars, but that;s been true about a lot of books I have read and loved.  His other book, The Tipping Point only received 4 stars and I absolutely love that book.  That’s a lot coming from someone who shunned nonfiction works for years (except for autobiographies and memoirs).

So go out and but one of these great books.  Let me know what you think if you have already read them.