Yes, yes… the official holiday season is a little bit behind us now, but my 
Christmas tree is still up and I celebrate as long as possible, i.e. until said tree becomes a fire hazard, so in the spirit of giving, here are a few goodies I’ve discovered over the past couple of weeks. Enjoy!
Reading Lists! Oh how I love them and this time of year is always ripe with such. The folks at TED Talks produced a nice one – 58 books recommended by TED speakers – and my favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s (Portland, OR) offered up a selection of their favorite nonfiction books of 2015. Here’s a list from Austin Kleon, who I mention here often – his reading list from the past year. And finally, if you missed reading along with Facebook’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg during his A Year of Books group, it’s not too late to see all of the books he read and discussed. BTW, if you’d like to run with Mark this year, you can join his new Facebook group, A Year of Running. 365 days = 365 miles. Go for it!
And while we’re on lists, I did my favorite music list in my last post, but afterward came across NPR’s poll results of their listeners favorite albums of 2015. More for your listening pleasure.
Switching gears… did you make a New Year’s Resolution to learn something new? I did. I’m taking banjo lessons. Hot dog! But I’m taking them in person because I’ve tried in vain to learn via online classes and Youtube videos. That said, there’s plenty of subjects well suited for the virtual world and the post on Medium, The 37 Best Websites to Learn Something New, will point you in the right direction.
Sadly, one thing that always gets me a little down when I think about and/or pursue learning something new is that I’m getting older. Older every day. I fear that I’ve missed out on ever becoming really good at something that I might want to do or be. I’m sure we all might feel that life crisis from time to time. In the midst of such anxiety last week, my daily email from The New Yorker arrived with a link to a great piece by Malcolm Gladwell, Why Do We Equate Genius with Precocity? I liked it a lot and found hope in the thought that maybe I’m just a late bloomer.
Just for fun – “The lyrebirds of Australia were highly mysterious and rarely seen until one fell in love with an elderly widow in 1930.” Surely you will want to listen. How could you not?
And finally, perhaps one of the coolest things that crossed my radar this week is this wonderful collection of infographics from the folks at Wait But Why. Could you imagine looking at 90 years of living in a more creative way? Great stuff.
That’s all for this week. Here’s to a Happy, Healthy, Peaceful, and Curious Creative-filled 2016 for all!
A Librarian by Any Other Name 