More Books

A couple of good books I just recently finished reading on pretty divergent topics but both very interesting. No Shortcuts To The Top – Climbing The World’s 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts. I have always been fascinated by mountain climbing and what makes them do it. This book gave some great insights into the whole physical and mental process of mountain climbing and the inherent dangers. Viesturs in one of a select few who have climbed the worlds fourteen highest peaks. It was interesting to note how he mentioned that he had always centered his training on running and lifting weights, then in the later years of his career he discovered something he called “functional training” He mentioned that in his thirty expeditions he reached the summit of 8,000 meter peaks twenty times, he attributes that to the fact that: “I’m not a risk taker. I’m a risk manager.”

The other book is The Science of Leonardo – Inside The Mind Of The Great Genius Of The Renaissance by Fritjof Capra. I have always enjoyed Capra’s writing, in fact it was his writing that really opened my eyes and got me away from linear thinking and made me think more about patterns and relationships. This is what he emphasized about Leonard’s work. His thesis is that da Vinci was really the first modern scientist, literally centuries ahead of his time because of his nonlinear views and his understanding of complex relationships. In many ways his work was the forerunner of what is today called complexity theory and systems theory. What fascinated me were his powers of observation and his ability to relate seemingly unrelated phenomenon.