Tim Ferro

Rob Gifford’s China Road is wonderfully written and will hold your interest throughout his entire journey. From the super-modern city of Shanghai to the end of route 312 at the border of Kazakhstan, Rob Gifford chronicles the people and places that define China.

China is a surprisingly complex country and empire. Their emergence again as a world power will affect everyone whether they know it or not. This spectacularly written book is a cross between Kerouac’s On the Road and a supremely knowledgeable and insightful review of China’s history and current status from someone who lived there for years.

This book should be at the top of everyone’s reading list for 2010. Gifford’s writing style makes for easy reading and he holds your interest on every page. I especially recommend this for Gen Y as China will impact our lives more than it has an other generation. This book provides the insight needed to understand and interact with the “new” China.

– Tim Ferro

I saw this morning that sometime yesterday Seth Godin released a new eBook titled What Matters Now. I decided then and there to fight off my ADHD and read it straight through. While reading it, I went through a gamut of emotions about how I felt about it. I started out loving it. The first 13 pages, or so, were great. It was interesting and intreguing. Then I got to the middle of the book. It seemed that one person after another wrote a blurb that was bite size Gen Y feel good babble. This actually kind of annoyed me, but I read on. As I approached the end, I had an epiphany about the book. I was looking at it in the wrong context.

I had been reading it, hoping for a series of blog post quality articles. What I should have been thinking the whole time was “What a great collection of modern thinkers.”. Once I realized I should also be looking at the whole message and how it’s presented, I enjoyed it much more. I took the perspective of, do I like what this person is saying and how they are saying it AND would I like to know more about them. I then began considering each author and whether or not I want to read their blog or books. It was a great introduction to wonderful blogs, twitters, books, etc. I recommend reading this book as an exploration into new ideas and blogs that you currently aren’t exploring.

– Tim Ferro