tl;dr We're starting a new book club and would love to have you join us. Details below.

The other day I got an email from Powells Books about a sale on Murakami titles. I remembered Chad telling me how much he was enjoying reading Murakami's books, so I wrote to ask him for recommendations where to start.

The following makes me sad ... "One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college." (Who Reads Books?).

I'm really lucky. I'm surrounded by friends near and far who are always reading something interesting. Each week more than one friend of mine will tell me about a book they're just loving right now.

I understand that learning doesn't need to come from a book. Eight and a half years ago, Bill and I started teaching Mac and iPhone development classes in Colorado. We'd meet at breakfast and invariably we'd have both been up at some point in the night flipping around television or the internet. That first class I was up watching Fred Friendly's "Ethic in America" series and Bill was watching Gilbert Strang's lectures on Linear Algebra.

Perhaps that's a better way to put it - I'm lucky to be surrounded by friends who are always learning something new and who love to share what they've learned.

So, Bill and Jeff and I were on a Twitter thread the other day arguing about education. Bill said something provocative about book clubs vs. college and mentioned a book he'd just finished and a book he was reading. I completely disagreed with his point about education (it's part of our long term friendship that we can disagree about such things and yet respect each other in so many other ways) but said "Book club - I'm in."

Jeff said he was in too but was sad that we weren't starting with the book Bill had just finished. I agreed with Jeff that I'd love to start with that one and Bill said he wouldn't mind rereading it.

So here we are.

We are starting a bookclub and you are invited to join us.

Jeff has set up a Slack group. If you want to be invited to the group, email any of us or send an email to bookclub@dimsumthinking.com.

Bill will be leading the discussion for the first book - the Slack group will include how much we will be reading the first week.

The book is Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos by Steven H. Strogatz. That link is the iBooks link but it is available elsewhere (including many libraries). Bill also points to accompanying lectures on You Tube.

Our plan is to start reading July 1 but feel free to join us in progress.