I am particular with books. Not about the authors, or type of books, no. I am particular about the physical condition and presence of books. I do not like pages folded, do not like bend ridges, do not like lots and lots of side notes. Highlights and annotations are okay for certain books. I keep bookmarks, several of them, and for a while only use proper bookmarks exclusively. I love the smell of paper, love the texture of the paper from older books. Love the sight of beautiful hard cover books and admire the equally beautiful bindings.

Given my peculiar liking of books, at some point it became clear that I could not fully enjoy reading them. I had limited time to read at the desks, which means books would have to be stuffed in bags and potentially get pages folded. Reading while drinking means it would get wet and dirty every now and then. It was difficult to read hard cover books; too heavy to carry around, and too much care would need to go into it to allow it to be pleasurable. It was quite sad…

Even though Kindle and Nook had been out for a few years, I wondered whether I could switch to reading on a device rather than holding a real book in hand. I didn’t think I could.

Then I got a Kindle. What convinced me? All the free classic books available on Kindle for one. I always wanted to read more books. Being able to read for free without walking out the door is nice. And not having to throw books away every few years, not having to move 10+ boxes of books every time I move is a very attractive idea. Being able to have access to my entire library anywhere as long as I have acess to computer? Who could say no to that?

But it was still a question if I would enjoy reading. It took a bit of adjustment at first. Holding a physical book on one hand, and Kindle in the other. Switching font style and size and spacing for quite a while until I found “my” comfortable type. I didn’t expect having the option to change fonts was that important to me, and finally, reading. It is quite a different experience from reading a physical book for sure. But I think Internet changed all that. Most people are used to reading in digital format, like the webpages, e-magazines, articles, news online. After getting used to reading on computer monitors, reading on e-link is drastically easier on the eyes. And having a dedicated device for reading, it shields me from the distractions of emails and other websites.

After about two days of reading on Kindle, I found some extra benefits. First, I can carry it everywhere. Even big thick books are light enough. Second, I can buy a lot of cheap books without regret, because a lot of them are free and they do not take up spaces! Third, I don’t need to worry about spills or oily fingerprints any more. And although I cannot use my personalized bookmarks any more, it does save my reading spot automatically. Oh, and being able to try out samples first is especially great. Because being ebooks, it is not just the content that is important, but little things like table of contents, layout for paragraphs and chapters, pictures, spelling errors, all suddenly became a concern we normally take for granted.

After finishing the first book on Kindle, I can honestly say that I enjoy reading all over again. And this time, it is about reading and enjoying the contents, not about books any more.

Well, I am still not done unfortunately. But somehow once I past chapter 7, I was enjoying it more.

Those people who pick out the next trend of fashion, in this book, this ability is described as pattern recognition. Interesting and refreshing. Detail about the book summary, I’d better wait till I am done with the book.

I am half way through the book. So, wish me good luck. =) It is part of my 2006 goal of reading 25 books.

Character, then, isn’t what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bund together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment. [(The Tipping Point, Macolm Gladwell, page 163)]

This explains it, why some friends have different “perspectives” of what my personality is.

More often than not we are ovewhelmed by emotions and hopes, which prevent us to see what is really going on around us. This is especially true with girls who are in love. We want to be loved, hope that the mix signals that the guys give out mean what we “want” to be, therefore we create excuses for them to pretend that they still love us.

The truth is, do they?

If they only call us when they are lonely, if they always say they are busy, if they say they are not ready to commit in a relationship yet start to date other people, what kind of signal are they giving out? Aren’t they clear enough? Why do we still waste time on these heartless guys? Because we love them more than they love us, and we want to be loved, we desperately want to be loved. How pathetic, yet how true…

All in all, I am glad that I am done with one book at last. Unfortunately, this book is less than satisfying for me.

I had my hope up when I first got the book, because of the nice cover design and reviews at the back. I hoped to learn something about myself from reading this book. However, I learned nothing but some fun stories. I could only take it on a very literal level, as a mere entertainment, rather than anything factual.

Yes we have rapid cognition, instincts, and ability to detect dangers around us. Yes we have unconscious working behind the scene that tell us things that we cannot even explain. Yet sometimes we make mistakes, too, because we let appearance fool us, or rely on “instincts” blindly and improperly. How can we avoid making those mistakes? The book doesn’t say…

I am a bit disappointed at this point. I hope the next book will be more interesting. Currently I have a few books in hand worth reading. A detective/mystery short story collection, a novel about a murder, another book on adaptive unconscious, or PHP� It becomes difficult to choose.

When I was waiting in LAX this time for the China trip, I picked up a book called “Blink, the Power of Thinking without Thinking” by Malcolm Gladwell. I found this book interesting with a first glance. Little did I know I just bought another book about the same topic, adaptive conscious.

Of course, the approaches of these two books are quite different. “Blink” is a lighter reading. It quotes more stories, and it doesn’t use the word “adaptive conscious.” It refers it as just unconsciousness, blink, or thin-slicing. The down side of this book is that it doesn’t give you a conclusion of how to determine the good vs. bad unconsciousness. “Strangers to Ourselves” is slightly more to the scientific side. It provides more studies, psychology researches, and so on. I have yet to read the end to learn how to learn ourselves.