I have been asked by more than a couple folks what exactly I read every day/week/month. I don’t think my reading list is vastly different or superior to anyone else’s who considers themselves well read… Let me give you just a brief partial list:
What you must read every week to be informed: The Economist. What Time & Newsweek want to be when they grow up. Don’t be put off by the name… this is the world’s preeminent weekly news magazine. Period. For example, last week’s ‘focus story’ was on offshore finance… everyone else would give you a page or two… The Economist devoted fourteen pages of text covering the subject from six different story lines. And no, I don’t get a new bicycle if I get twenty people to subscribe. (Pick up an issue before telling me what’s better.)
What you must read every week to be informed, and take with a large grain of salt: Publisher’s Weekly. What everyone in the industry would like to count on as gospel, but the magazine’s biases make it difficult. In the absence of anything else, read it. Let me know what you’re reading instead of PW, please.
What you should read if you’re a marketing type: Catalog Age, DM News, trade publications about informercials, retail trends, and demographics; and at least some of the weekly/monthly business magazines. INC has been consistently good. Forbes is ideologically bent in my direction, and for a big business magazine, is simple to read, and covers lots of mid size applicable stuff.
What you should read to understand what’s next: BUSINESS 2.0. Again, don’t be put off by the 2.0… that was their name long before the 2.0 concept hit the web. This is must reading particularly if you don’t ‘get’ the web, computers, streaming anything, RSS, or blogs.
Books… do I ever read a book? I do my best to read two to four books a month, above and beyond the half dozen or so books I read every week in my regular daily workload. Since I am about a 99.5% non fiction reader, much of what I read is business, self help related, or humor.
The last three books I have just finished:
Freakonomics - while it is a must read, the longer I have had to think about how these guys may have cooked their own results too, the more I think they may have. The concept is interesting… don’t accept ‘widely accepted’ answers to life’s situations, but take another look at the numbers, the base info, and maybe you’ll draw different conclusions.
The Long Tail - I think I recommended this last month. If I did, read it again. If I didn’t, this is the one book that will give you the future macro about the Internet. Now you’re doing 2% of sales on the net… in two years, 50%… in five years, 100%, minus your special sales bulk sales. Here’s the why and the global how. You still have to figure out how the how applies to you, but here’s a big piece of the roadmap.
Nasty Little Bits - Bourdain is a long time chef and now has his own rather odd travelog/food program/history lesson/culture shock rolled into a TV series. If you’ve seen it, then the book makes sense; if you haven’t then unless you’re a major foodie, it might not. By the way, he’s been renewed for a second season, on now I believe… worth the hour most weeks… called: Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations.
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