A World of Ideas. Thanks to Reading & Listening

Enlightenment thrives on ideas. Ideas well formulated, articulated and put into action. That is essentially what moves the world.
You can then imagine how pleased I get when I gain unfettered access to some of these ideas. In fact, I invariably remain indebted to those who come up with, and those who acknowledge, ideas worth sharing.

That said, I have lately been taking time to feed my inquisitive and ever curious mind with great ideas. Today, I'll share three of my best idea lounges.

Project Syndicate

This is my newest discovery, where you find original op-ed commentaries by leading opinion makers in politics, business, economics, science, art  and culture. It is in essence a world of ideas.

Think about the op-ed articles you've come to love from The New York Times, The Independent, The Guardian and other newspapers of note. Well, you find this kind of beautiful thinking and well articulated writing on this site. Check out Project Syndicate now, I bet you'll find it every bit worth your while.

Comment is free 

Published by the Guardian, Comment is free is a great hangout for me where I get to read great articles touching on current global issues. Over and beyond this, the well moderated, and often witty comments that follow each article make Comment is free a great online community.

Take time and visit Comment is free. There, you'll find articles and commentary on politics, global agenda, human rights, religion, philosophy, health and all manner of debate that affects human beings across the world. You'll love the reader feedback that informs the topical discourse we've come to love on Comment is free.

International Radio: BBC World Service, VOA News, et al

Thanks to predominantly wanting broadcasts [both music and content] in most local radio stations, I decided to explore the International radio stations available in my area via FM, and globally on the Internet. The BBC World Service comes out tops with up to the minute news updates, detailed news analysis, documentaries, science programs and much more.

The Voice of America radio also has in-depth news and current affairs programs, and a variety of music shows across various genres and from different parts of the world. In addition, more of the VOA programming is available online for live streaming or as free-to-download podcasts.

Speaking of podcasting and online streaming, there are other stations such as Deustch Welle radio, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, China Radio International that offer great content on their respective web sites.

Listening to informative and edifying programming on radio is a great way of gathering ideas and embracing enlightenment.

As Listen to the Radio by Don Williams plays in the background, I now get back to reading The Perils of 2012, a great piece by Joseph E. Stiglitz on Project Syndicate.

Have a great day full of ideas, good people.

Reading and Writing both for Pleasure and Profit

This post on reading and writing is a guest post, kindly hosted on Wamathai's cool blog. 

"Let your imagination fly through books... "

- Anon. 

The Written Word

Reading is almost an addiction for me, one that I won't be addressing by 12-stepping or joining support groups anytime soon. You see, it is through books that I get to visit places that I'll never have the means nor the time to physically visit. It is through books that I get to learn things that attending class all my life won't let me learn. It is through books that I get to savor the beauty of the written word ... I get to think about whatever the writer wants me to imagine, learn or think.



I'll now proceed to share some insights from the wonderful world of books..........

Go right ahead and read the entire post on Wamathai's blog.

Books, eBooks, eReaders and Tablets

Last week, I engaged in some interesting discourse with both @Wamathai and @SonyK_Imani. It was about our preferences for book print editions or digital editions [e-Books].

Note: In this post, e-books will hereafter be referred to as eBooks, e-readers as eReaders and print editions of books as simply books.

On the same day, CNN highlighted the findings of a study where more Americans now buy eReaders than tablets. BNET has gone ahead and put this report [PDF, 774KB] in perspective, largely because the new shift is bad news for tablet makers, especially Apple.

Interestingly, Amazon in a press release says that it's now selling more e-Books than print editions of books.

eBooks
Much has been said about digital editions of books. I still stand by my word about the convenience, unparalleled mobility, reading [many might not agree with me on this one], and interactive elements such as in-text search and embedded multi media.

As  I work on my book Counting Down the Days, my only option is to publish online, and unless something drastic happens to change my mind, I intend to publish subsequent books online. Online publishing affords one a global audience, timeless archiving of the work and highly cost effective publishing, marketing and distribution.

Tablets
Reports and analysis aside, I love eBooks. In fact, I cannot wait for the day I finally get my hands on an ASUS eee Pad Transformer. I really need it to read eBooks among other things [writing, listening to music, streaming radio, access Internet, watch movies etc] and have already made my intentions public in that regard.

The thing with tablets for me, is that they can multi-task. The screens are full color. A definite plus for the ASUS Transformer is the physical keyboard [docking station] that makes typing easier, adds more ports to the device and enhances battery life. The keyboard makes it a media creation vs a media consuming device.

Other Tablet devices do exist, notably the Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Toshiba Thrive, Acer Iconia and Apple iPad. I just had to say a bit more about my personal favorite.

eReaders
The Amazon Kindle tops the list on this one, although it is faced with worthwhile contenders in the name of Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Bookeen Cybook, Sony Reader and Pocketbook among others.

Wikipedia does have a very comprehensive comparison of all these eReaders. Every manufacturer seems to add more features with every new release, and the pricing is far much lower than for tablets.

3G Internet, Wifi, eInk, internal storage and integrated dictionaries seem to be fairly standard features.

Verdict
In light of all the above about  about books and devices used to read them, do you still swear by the traditional print book format? Have you embraced eBooks? And when it comes to reading them, do you prefer to use an eReader, a Tablet or a traditional desktop/laptop computer?

Short Story 1 - The Right to Remain Silent

Well, as earlier promised, today I give you a sneak peek into one of the short stories in my upcoming book Counting Down the Days.

All the stories in this book essentially focus on the human condition, exploring such issues as love, crime, friendship, governance, parenting, schooling, business and pretty much anything else that happens in our day to day lives.

The Right to Remain Silent
This story touches on crime and punishment.
Ideally, people should take responsibility for their actions. That is why every juris[friggin']diction has a justice system whose core mandate is to see that people respect other people's rights, as well as have theirs respected. In other words, fairness is maintained across the board with no bias whatsoever.

In real life however, such ideals are not attained. The rules keep on getting broken with reckless abandon, which confirms that they who commit crimes are rarely punished thanks to wanton impunity, frustrating red tape and corruption practised by officials across the ranks in the criminal justice system.

In The Right to Remain Silent, Edwin is able to apprehend one of the thugs who have raided his home. He decides to make it very clear to the thug what the right to remain silent should actually mean. It is a shocking revelation of what law abiding citizens can do when the systems that are supposed to ensure their safety and that of their possessions fail them.

My Current Reads
We all know that good writing should always go hand in hand with much more reading.
I am currently reading two books, both of which have something to do with business and self discovery.

One is Capitalist Nigger by Chika Onyeani. My sister lent me her copy on Wednesday, and I already like the book.
The author makes a brusque indictment of the black race, which despite natural endowment, is a non-productive race that mostly consumes, ultimately depending on other communities for its culture, its language, its feeding and its clothing.
He however asserts that only by becoming economic warriors who love making money as much as they love themselves, their wives and children can members of the black race escape from their victim mentality.

The other is Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. It got a mention in a recent post on The Walkabout.
The book champions small appropriate technologies that empower people more. This in effect contrasts the widely held notion that "bigger is better." It discusses economics as if people mattered.

So much for the writing and reading, have yourself an awesome weekend.
Cheers!

Welcome. Let's Read & Write Together

African Writing
Today is truly a great day for me, yet another important step in my writing.
Setting up this site marks the beginning of an exciting journey towards the publication of my books, books that I hope will be many and more important, profound.

It all started when at an early age, I began reading books from the Heinemann African Writers Series. This included such heavyweights as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Cyprian Ekwensi, Wole Soyinka, Alex la Guma and others.

Reading
Through this site, I purpose to learn and share stuff about reading and writing. I happen to love reading more than most things in life, and I bet it'll be interesting to exchange ideas with you about good reads, be it fiction or non-fiction, and touching on nearly any topic under the sun [yeah, I have no qualms about what I read, almost anything goes].
Towards that end, I shall routinely write about the books I am currently reading. Not fully fledged book reviews but simply highlights and links to where you can get your own copy. That includes download links for free eBooks. Should there be no link, then I'll simply Email you a copy of such a book.

Writing
For years, my writing has been published both online and on several local [Nairobi, Kenya] print magazines. Much of it has been freelance writing, or driven by online advertising.
Along the way, I decided to write some books, staring with fictional short stories. This has grown into a cool collection that I feel needs to become a book. This will happen later this year :)

Still on writing, it'll be my pleasure to engage with others in the craft, both newbies and veterans. To this end, we shall be having guest posts and extensively share creative writing insights from across the web.
In addition, this site will be closely tied to Connect eMagazine, another of my projects [currently in incubation].

Starting Point
As always, it is a good thing to get into any worthwhile venture fully armed. When it comes to writing, nothing beats a small book about writing, that carries so much weight. Every writer worth his salt should have a copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. The book simply presents the principal requirements of plain English style, focusing on the rules of usage in literature, composition and grammar.

That said, let's link again tomorrow when I present my first collection of short stories. Thanks for dropping by.
Cheers!