The advantages of new technology have a cost

http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/the-dangers-of-externalizing-knowledge/

Devin Coldewey contemplates the shortcomings of the younger generation. "The fact is that the kids are growing up pretty weird these days, because of the way technology has outpaced our institutions of learning and standards of knowledge. The short attention span and reliance on non-text media are to be expected in an age where attention is indulged by on-demand information, and the effects of these things will continue to be written about, rightly and wrongly. There is a more subtle and insidious trend, however, that may prove to be more damaging than tech-born changes in learning modality. It’s a process that has been going on for a long time, but that recent developments may push to the breaking point. The problem, as I see it, is that we have stopped valuing the accumulation of information within ourselves."

But a blog brought this to my attention.

a best book list

Please notice that I have never met a "best" list that I completely liked. Popularity, skewed statistics and mistakes go against me. And the list going around this week is not copied from BBC; it was published in the Guardian and compiled from individual lists of 10 books that readers favored, so every contributor has read at least 10 books from that list.

There are better must-read lists:
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207349,00.html


From the list under consideration this week, I have picked:

--- 5 books that I like ---
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Bible by God
Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson

--- 12 books that were a waste of my time ---
His Dark Materials (Golden Compass) by Philip Pullman
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Emma by Jane Austen
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving
Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Watership Down by Richard Adams

Here is an extreme list:
The Most-poorly-written Best-selling book that I have read is Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.