A few snippets

I was feeling a bit glum in a public place this past weekend. I went alone to see a few events at the Ottawa writers festival.

I as encouraged by the turnout however, and by the fact that you got a couple of hundred people to come and talk and engage with ideas on a sunny afternoon in Ottawa in April.

I attended the presentation by Andrew Potter of his new book, The Authenticity Hoax which was interesting. I was a bit disappointed though in that he didn't rally answer any of the questions asked of him.

Actually the star of the show in my view in some ways Dan Gardiner, who writes in the Ottawa Citizen. I had actually ever heard of him before, ok probably not never , but not enough to know who he was, but he came off well and was quite good in his questioning.

One interesting moment was when a little boy of 11 asked a particularly well framed and intelligent question, the audience clapped. That surprised me as I didn't really understand why at first. I guess he impressed people. It was likely the best question of the night, and Potter dogged and ignored it, then talked about his love of video games (which was I'll admit slightly related to the question).

Tonight was Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant discussion The Age of Persuasion. I'm actually surprised that I like their radio show as it's about advertising and often I'm not even really aware of the ads they are talking about as I don't watch much TV, but still it's super interesting. I guess it's true that a god teacher can make you want to learn about anything.

One interesting thing was how many of the same people I saw from the night before, some of them even asked questions again. I wish one guy in particular had not.

One funny moment was whan a guy basically got up there to pitch himself for school trustee and then asked a dumb question, and muttered wish I hadn't asked that as he walked away from the mic.

My reading list.

So it looks like it's been a few weeks since my last post unfortunately. My in-laws came up last weekend, and I guess the week before that was Easter, though I did actually have the time to post.

Anyways on to today's post.

I heard an interesting interview with Yann Martel, about his new book Beatrice and Virgil. It was a bit of a strange interview; I think they were trying hard not to give anything away.

It reminded me of the website What is Stephen Harper Reading, which provides a series of suggestions for the Prime Minister to read.

I've actually pulled a few things of that list for my own reading list. I'm not much of a fiction reader though. Generally I read non-fiction, though I do occasionally like to spice things up and read some fiction. I used to read some science fiction, but haven't lately.

Here's my current (expanding) reading list in addition to Beatrice and Virgil of course..

The new Extraordinary Canadian biographies ( Marshall McLuhan, Louis Riel and Lafontaine & Baldwin)

The structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (I've had this for a while.. about time I should read it.)

The End of Energy Obesity: Breaking Today's Energy Addiction for a Prosperous and Secure Tomorrow by Peter Tertzakian

and The year of the flood when it comes out in paperback this summer.