TED Book Club

Another TED book club mailing has arrived.  It's exciting to get the new books, but a bit frustrating since I haven't finished the previous batch.  I've been dipping into several of the books and loving them all but not quite finished any of them.  This batch includes:

• Karen Armstrong's Twleve Steps to a Compassionate Life.  Armstrong won the TED prize a few years ago and completed her with to launch a Charter for Compassion, which would encompass the precepts shared by world religions, emphasizing their similarities rather than their differences.  This book apparently states what has always seemed to me ot be rather obvious, namely that 'compassion is a human quality that lives outside religious beliefs'.  This should be an interesting read.
• John Brockman's Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?  This book brings together thoughts from a variety of contributors writing on the role the Internet plays in shaping the way humans think and behave.  Clearly the Internet has changed us; I look forward to reading what these people have to say about it.
• Evgeny Morozov's The Net Delusion.  This book apparently challenges us to more past 'cyberutopianism' to a more realistic view of the Net.  As much as we may celebrate Twitter revolutions, the Net can be used just as effectively by ruthless leaders to quell such uprisings.

I hope to have time to read these books after TED!