Tony Buzan, 73, is one of the world's most influential leaders in the field of creative thinking, and has written more than 100 books on the brain and how we learn. They include The Speed Reading Book, which teaches a technique to read faster while still absorbing and comprehending the content. "The importance of reading is that without it we die," he says, "because the word reading does not apply just to a page with lines and words on it. Reading is the use of the eye-brain system, the recognition of language, letters, codes, comprehension and understanding, and how to archive and access all that knowledge. And then you have to know what to do with it. Why read if you're not going to do anything with that knowledge? There has to be a purpose to it." To Buzan, reading means reading everything around you, not just books. "So all the great earlier citizens in the world learnt to read. The Bedouins could read a desert in an astonishing way, and they could remember it. They also learnt to read oceans, animals and the faces of other people."
Based in the United Kingdom, Buzan is a regular visitor to the UAE. We bring you his top 5 favourite books.
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The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943
A philosophical tale in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince who has fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. It opened my mind to the importance of imagination, understanding other living beings, having a vision, and tackling the restrictions put on the brain. The Little Prince was like an ambassador for the brain. He taught all the characters within how to live spiritually, and to love your life and everything around it.
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, 1937
This book, which is highly poetic, is about the beginning of life and how the universe developed. The author imagined the universe from the beginning to the end, what happened within it and what the different life forms were like. It talked about the evolution of the brain. I am a fast reader, but with Star Maker, I would read one page and would be thinking about it for a week. It was like eating a mountain bar. It took me many months to complete it.
Dune by Frank Herbert, 1965
This book is about a desert planet and the planets around it, and how nuns train children to become skilled in all levels. They are brilliant teachers and they train one child to become the top leader. The book is devoted to the metaphoric methodology of teaching children how to learn, become leaders, become physically fit and deal with enemies. There’s poetry and wonderful literature in it.
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, 1943
This book is about a cloister of monks playing a hyper-spatial dimensional game with the brain – with knowledge, creative thinking, music and mathematics. The book takes you through the mind of someone playing the game, and as you read it, you become a player. It is a wonderful mind-expanding read which helps you to daydream.
William Shakespeare, Complete Works
As a little boy, I hated poetry and Shakespeare, because it was always taught linearly and I had to remember it for reasons that I didn’t understand. As I got older, I fell in love with Shakespeare’s mind. It changed my life and helped me to fall in love with poetry. Metaphor is the honey of human thinking, and poetry is the finest form of metaphor.
