My Reading Plan

My reading plan.

I think it should start what specific topic I want to learn, and then start with a few most famous book/author or book list. There are several advantages in reading this way. First, if after reading a few books I found the topic is not as interesting as I thought, there would be no need to spend more time. Second, it is a great way to narrow down the topic I want to focus on. After so many years of book production, even a small topic, say like the history of 1950-1955 may be covered by hundreds of books (the U.S. have published 292,037 in 2011 alone). Most of the times the interest starts with a vague idea, then it could be more specific after reading several books. Although it is still instrumental to know what do I want to know from these books/readings. Writing on blog on the topic? Writing a series of essays? Or just broaden my knowledge and have a better understanding of a specific thing? Always start with the result will make things much easier to carry on and define a certain stop point. 

Right now, I have a few topics in mind that need to be addressed. First is of course my thesis, that involves a shortlist of reading including some papers and books. Then I am interested in interview techniques, how to express myself more clearly and intrigue companies to hire me. A little beyond professional, I want to know the complete general world history, history of Europe, history of the United States, history of the United Kingdom and history of China in a chronically way. As I have long been interested, there are some popular psychology/cognitive/social psychology knowledge I want to know more, like how human behavior are influenced by the context, how to focus more, how much unconsciousness affects the way we behave, and eventually how I can better control and organize myself. 

Although I still feel something in my mind, reading this will probably take me a year or two. Obviously other ideas will come up or follow the reading. So first let me get the thesis done and nail a job, during this time, collecting interesting book titles for the rest of the topic will be a leisure.