Other people's book clubs

This was going to be a great post, until I started pulling together the links. And then it all sort of fell apart. So instead of three great resources, I've got one good, one stale and one gone. But really, it was going to be great.

Yesterday on the TED blog, I read about the TED Book Club. It turns out that everyone who attends the high-end conference in Monterey gets a bimonthly package of books, CDs and stuff, and we were about to see the list. Unfortunately, the announcement post is now deleted, and the list on LibraryThing, briefly available to all, is now private. Too bad, I really enjoy the videos from TED (I especially like this one from Sir Ken Robinson), and I was looking forward to browsing their book list. (You can look at book club posts from the old blog to get a taste of what we're missing.)

The TED post reminded of the GBN Book Club, which Global Business Network has done for clients for years. They've also posted the newsletter (originally a regular dose of Stewart Brand) and book list on their web site with a slight delay, but now the latest newsletter is from May 2006. Is it dormant now? I hope not. I've never even tried to keep up with all the reading, but it's been an inspiration from time to time.

Not doing so well on this great list of resources, I went back to Jeff Stewart's post about the DFJ book club, which isn't a club but a list of nine recommended books. It is, however, still available (*whew*).

The GBN list has been a great sampling of timely reading for a long time, and if the TED list approaches the quality of their speakers, it will be a nice addition. This type of sharing by particularly bright and interesting people is a valuable service to us all, and I hope to see more of it.

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About Nathan Gilliatt

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  • Voracious learner and explorer. Analyst tracking technologies and markets in intelligence, analytics and social media. Advisor to buyers, sellers and investors. Writing my next book.
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