I’ve chosen this weekend read not because I agree with everything it says, nor because I consider it’s author particularly well qualified to write on the subject. But Ryan Holiday’s “25 rules for living from a (semi-)successful 26-year-old” from Thought Catalog is one of those trashy list-based “articles” that, to my mind at least, falls just on the right side of provoking a bit of fairly superficial self-analysis in the reader.

I offer it as a sort of antidote to the frequently long and heavy articles I suggest as weekend reads… we all need a rest from time to time!

My last 2D feature was on being late… and this one continues the theme of “lateness”. I hope you won’t conclude that I’m obsessed!

My first recommended read on the topic is “Oh, stop your whining!” by Jean Adams on the Fuse Open Science Blog. Unlike my usual 2D selections, it’s not a long article. But Jean’s reflection on her own changing perceptions around people’s work:life balances made me reflect on my attitude.

I think, like many people, this is something I struggle with to some extent. I don’t feel I overwork (at least not very often), yet I frequently stay in the office until late into the evening or arrive early in the morning, I frequently read and respond to work emails at weekends and on holidays, and struggle to say “no” to anyone offering extra work.

I don’t expect others to do the same. In fact, one of the pleasures of catching up with work out of hours is the lack of distraction, and the fact that I can reply to emails without them bouncing straight back. If everyone did the same, it would be far less satisfying!

Occasionally, I’m given cause to reflect. I recently got annoyed at someone who, when realising I was on holiday, refused to continue an email conversation. When someone called my view of time off “abstemious” – as a compliment, I think – it played on my mind. And when I saw Jean’s post, I wondered again about my work:life balance.

I rationalised, as I always do, that if I’m happy then the balance is good. But perhaps an occasional pause for reflection on the topic is no bad thing.

My other selected article on this topic looks at working “late” from a slightly different perspective: in the New York Times, Steven Greenhouse writes “Working late, by choice or not” about those working beyond the typical retirement age in the United States.

I was particularly struck by the story of Dr Rafael Garza, who is still doing ward rounds at the age of 87… having moved to a new specialty at the age of 74. I suppose that if I’ve still got (at least) sixty years to go in my present career, I’ve got plenty of time to work out the best work:life balance…!

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them!

As someone who isn’t a fan of spiders at the best of times, this Weekend Read slightly freaked me out – yet intrigued me at the same time. Jeffrey Delviscio writes in the New York Times about being bitten by a black widow spider.

Jason Merkoski was on the team at Amazon which developed the Kindle. This book gives insights into how the process of developing the Kindle felt, and gives a personal account of Merkoski’s relationship with books and his ideas of where the medium is going.

These multiple strands make the book a bit of a mishmash of genres, which (no doubt) makes marketing it somewhat tricky. Despite this, I felt that it hung together quite nicely as a whole, though it is undeniable that it reads a little more like a flowing conversation than a planned essay.

Merkoski’s passion for books shines through this volume – not least because of the anecdotes he relates about the difficulties of coping with the number of books he owns. Given his love of books, I was surprised by his level of excitement about a future in which books have changed to the degree that they no longer contain the written word. In the medium-term, he imagines books which are intercut with short movies and games – not so far from what we seen on the iPad today. This fills me with dread, because it seems to me that this limits the reader’s imagination.

Yet, despite my reluctance, I can see that his prediction is probably accurate. Blockbuster books already often have filmed “trailers”. Games with written stories and intercut scenes (e.g. the Professor Layton series) are enormously popular. Convergence between formats can surely only become more common.

And his long-term predictions are still more frightening. With strong overtones of sci-fi, he suggests that authors’ imaginations will be “downloaded” into readers’ minds. Again, despite my personal reluctance, it’s hard to disagree that more efficient communication of ideas is likely to be the direction of travel.

The anecdotes about working on the Kindle project which are intercut into the story gave a little insight into the project, and were described with passion and enthusiasm yet were not overdone. They provided a valuable grounding to offset the flights of futurology, and I think the combination worked rather well.

I should point out that the book includes interactive “bookmarks”, which are conversation-starters linked to Jason’s website. Because I read this book pre-publication, I didn’t use these, so can’t comment on how well they really worked. The questions posed often provided food for thought, regardless of the fact that I didn’t discuss them with others online.

All-in-all, this was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read for a little while. It may be hard to categorise or capture in a nutshell, but it was nonetheless thought-provoking and engaging. I’d certainly recommend it.

My recommended read for this week is a Jimmy Stamp piece from the Smithsonian‘s website, giving a fascinating insight into the history, expansion and architecture of McDonald’s, casting it in a Modernist light. It’s only fairly short, but contains some interesting nuggets of history and I found it rather thought-provoking, examining a familiar concept from a somewhat unfamiliar viewpoint. It is well worth reading.

I’m a stickler for timing. Few things irritate me in quite the same way as meetings starting late, or people turning up late. Punctuality is important, and the busier I find myself the more a lack of punctuality irritates me. So here, I’m presenting two articles on being late.

The first is from National Review, and is a little New York centric. Kevin D. Williamson posits that “wasting somebody else’s time is a great sin”. I tend to agree. I particularly liked his description of the commuter holding open the train doors as someone “who is not in such a hurry that he can be bothered to precede the train to its stop but in such a hurry that he cannot wait three minutes for the next train”.

The second is from Medium. It is Max Strom’s advice from life experience on how to cure oneself of being perpetually late. It starts from the position that riunning late is an problem of “life span management and commitment integrity”.

Strom makes some points that I thought were common to everyone – probably because they are things that I always do. Does anyone really plan to arrive on time for an appointment, rather than a few minutes early? Does anyone really fail to plan to fill up their petrol tank? But, on the other hand, some of the advice is stuff I disagree with: my watch always runs a couple of minutes fast, and my brain falls for the con every time… which is a kind of self-sabotage in itself, as it makes me disproportionately annoyed when people arrive late.

Both of these are great reads, and come highly recommended.

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them!

This can’t really be called an original suggestion for a Weekend Read: earlier in the year, this fantastic New York Times article was being recommended across the internet. But nevertheless, Maxine Swann’s bathetic and somehow familiar tale of a socially naive university professor seduced into – intentionally or otherwise – smuggling two kilos of cocaine into Bolivia is well worth a read.

It’s hard to imagine that there are many people left that haven’t seen this clip by now… but isn’t it nice to see two people defending decisions of conscience on an issue? While Rudd got the better of the exchange, I think this is exactly the kind of open discussion that raises the standard of debate.

And – as a sidenote – isn’t the constant distraction of the Twitter stream at the bottom of the picture irritating in a way that’s symbolic of much that is wrong about TV’s obsession with viewer interaction?

We have no freakin’ clue. And that’s my expert opinion.

Entomologist Gwen Pearson on what is leaving freaky tiny web-like structures in the Peruvian Amazon. I bet they are made by some evil spider-like creature that would give me nightmares…!

Love Story was published in 1970, and was one of the first mega-blockbuster books. It sold tens of millions of copies, and a large number of people appear to claim it as their favourite book of all time. It is actually a novelisation of a screenplay which, following the success of the book, was produced and performed extraordinarily well. I was born in 1985 – more than a little too late to appreciate the fuss. Yet given readers’ apparent enduring love of the book, though, I wanted to read it.

Love Story is a short book, running to fewer than 100 pages. It tells the story of the blossoming love between rich Harvard law student Oliver Barrett IV and poor Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavilleri, who dies at an awfully young age. That isn’t a spoiler: it is revealed in the first line of the book.

But I’m not sure that the headline “love story” is the most interesting: another felt more moving to me. The subplot follows Oliver’s changing relationship with his father. Segal’s own father died shortly before he wrote this novel, and perhaps this is the reason for this subplot being infused with such emotion.

Yet, despite this, the book felt a bit flat. The characters felt a little cardboard, with the shallow characterisation bluntly hammered home time and again, with little room for subtlety. The plot is stretches realism beyond breaking point in parts: the refusal of the doctor to tell Jennifer her own diagnosis, for example. And I found the dialogue throughout to be awkwardly stilted.

Despite all of its flaws, the book was still moving. But it felt like it was moving me in a sort of emotionally manipulative way, as though the mechanics were on show and I was being prodded in a direction, rather than moving me by engaging me on a deeper level. I’ve not seen the movie, but I believe it relies heavily on strings to generate emotion, and that’s sort of how the book feels too. It was moving, but not in an especially memorable or deeply affecting way.

So, I guess I enjoyed Love Story while I read it, but it was a little clunky. I’m not going to rush to read Segal’s sequel.