I read Jamie Notter's thoughts on blogging and it led me to have some thoughts of my own. I have been doing this for about a month now, and I don't feel like stopping any time soon. For me, blogging the books I read has brought my self-education to a great new level. When I read something now, I feel like I have a deliverable, which motivates me to get more out of what I'm reading. I read more carefully, and I take special notes of action steps and useful formulae that I find. Additionally, although the mission of my blog is primarily to serve as a "virtual bookshelf," I find myself wanting to turn other professional experiences into deliverables. It definitely clarifies my thinking, and has the added benefit that at some point, I could possibly transmit something I've learned to others.
So, I've been spending some time with Glenn Reynold's book (Glenn being of course the seminal and highly influential Instapundit ), and I must say that it gives me lots of language I can use to talk about phenomena that are easily observable right now. I think you could say that Glenn Reynolds has done for technology what Virginia Postrel did with design topics . Which is to say, they beat the drum and say, hey, look at what this democratization of knowledge can do for you! In that vein, the book is really pretty visionary, pointing out the magic of the internet age. And I for one see it as magical. You know how Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pa in Little Town on the Prairie said to Laura that it was an amazing time to be alive (that was in the 1890s)? I've been actively thinking that to myself for the past few years, and An Army of Davids gives me ample evidence to back that up with its talk of citizen empowerment and the "comfy chair revolution." The theme of "