September 6: 2 Books

30. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

This book started off soooooo well. And then it just became soooooo bogged down by unnecessary jargon and a whole new set of vocabulary terms seemingly created for Wall Street types desperately in need of new terms to describe already proven time management tasks. I found myself at times wishing the author would have written in a more down to earth "everyman" language, less concerned with sounding like he was moderating a panel seminar at a hotel conference room.

Still, this book resonated with me MUCH more than the Covey book from last week, and the author's priority-based system definitely made me think about all of the bullshit I need to eliminate from my own life in order to cut to the quick and really start to make things happen with my eBay and Amazon stores, and with my new consulting company that I just formed. I love it when books make me think, and in spite of unnecessary "businessperson" jargon, this book definitely made me think about how I can achieve focus and clarity in my own day-to-day life and career.

31. The Illustrated Yellow Emperor's Canon of Medicine compiled and illustrated by Zhou Chuncai and Han Yazhou

For 5 years now since becoming interested in all things Chinese, I have found Chinese medicine to be a fascinating topic. From the acupuncture office of my very brief wing chun sifu several years ago when I tried my hand at that style of Chinese kung fu; to my personal self-healing odysseys involving 2 separate legitimately broken ankles (2 years apart from each other) using Chinese herbs and Chinese "sports medicine" techniques as described in Tom Bisio bible on the topic, A Tooth from the Tiger's Mouth (a must read if you are interested in applying Chinese medicinal techniques to healing your own injuries) -- I have been interested in exploring a bit more about the foundations of this amazing art and science for some time now.

With this in mind, I jumped at the chance to purchase a $1 copy of this educational comic book from The Strand when I saw it on one of their outside racks a few months ago. The book did not disappoint. Like the NLP book from a recent blog entry, I also discovered that for me, with Chinese medicine, a little goes a really long way. After reading this condensed version of the founding document of all Chinese medicine as a discipline, I think I might be content for the rest of my life if I never read another classic ancient Chinese work on Chinese medicine -- unless my Chinese characters get so good one day that I can actually go back and reread this work in the original Chinese. I might be willing to make an exception for myself if that were the case...