These days at the touch of a finger anyone can Google anything and get anywhere from a snippet of information to a well-researched article. It is a sort of literary exploration – even learning. But to hold the result of another person’s passion, heart, knowledge, imagination, insight – blood, sweat and tears in your hand in the shape of a book is another experience altogether.

Essayist Walter Benjamin says it this way, “You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps – his tastes, his interest, his habits.” Below I have shared a gallery of some images from my personal library. Take a look around and you will get to know me in different way than through my professional bio.

Many of the books I have read have taken me into the world of the creative mind, into the life of those who invent, and the wonder of how collaboration, serendipity and even war, migration, self-experimentation, sacrifice and perseverance play into the process. I value those books and their authors even more as I have been working on my own book on invention for over a year. I often wonder if others in the community of inventors read with such curiosity and awe as I do.

And my reading isn’t limited to books. As an inventor I benefit from an awareness of technology from non medical industries. Being educated and conscious of technologies in unrelated fields can often be applied to treating medical diseases. It creates a sort of “appositional” thought that could be synonymous in some ways with the term “cross-pollination.” I deliberately read literature that includes publications like Wired Magazine, Fast Company, The MIT Technology Review, The Economist, The Financial Times Weekend Edition, and frankly an enormous amount of physics literature related to quantum mechanics, field theory, string theory, and theories which align all those theories. I find this helps me as an inventor.

I will be sharing more in-depth discussions about books that have had an influence on me in the BOOK section of this website. I am curious about and interested in what you are reading. Are any of the books in my library favorites of yours? Why? Are you the author of any of those? Please comment and share.