How airport Newsstands feed curiosity ...

"It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be" by Paul Arden. 

The bold font and insights from a successful advertiser makes this an easy read. "Life's Creative Circle" offers a great perspective on life.

• 0-1 yrs: Nothing
• 1-3 yrs: Minimalist
• 3-5 yrs:  Fantasy
• 5-10 yrs: The beginnings of copying
• 10-15 yrs: Art becomes grown up
• 15-20 yrs: A need to change the world
• 20-25yrs: Beginnings of political awareness
• 25-30 yrs: Maturity
• 30-40yrs: Hell bent on success
• 40-45 yrs: Repeating success
• 45-50 yrs: Trying to keep up with the 25 year olds
• 50 yrs: Watershed
• 50-60 yrs: Reinventing yourself  (I'm here)
• 60-75 yrs: Gentle decline into senility
• 75-85 yrs: Youth regained
• 85 - 100 yrs: Inhibitions lost. Don't give a damn. Me,me,me

"Universe on a T-Shirt", by Dan Falk. 

A very readable and entertaining book about the great physicists of the ages and the ultimate search for the theory of everything that is so concise that it could be put on a "T-shirt".

• "The answer to the Great Question... of Life, the Universe and Everything is Forty-Two*

"Genghis Khan and the making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. 

Offers great insight into the man who subjugated more land in twenty-five years than the Roman Empire did in four hundred.

• At the age of almost sixty, after being provoked by a neighboring Sultan, Genghis Khan took part of his army across two thousand miles of steppes, mountains and the feared Red Desert; doing what no one thought could be done. He completely out flanked and surprising his foe, and as you might guess, it did not end well for the Sultan. 

"SWAY - The irresistible pull of irrational behavior" by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman. 

This is a fascinating book as to why rational people will do irrational things... interesting insight into the human condition.

• The chapter, Anatomy of an Accident is a stunning account of the contradictory actions of a veteran pilot and the attempt to understand why he did what he did. It resulted in the loss of 584 lives.

"The Procrastinator's Handbook - Mastering the Art of Doing it Now" by Rita Emmett. 

I really should get around to reading this book (feel free to roll your eyes).

"The logic of Failure - Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations" by Dietrich Dorner. 

This is a heavy book to get through, but it does a great job of illustrating the relationship between things and the ripple effect that making changes can have.

"American Prometheus - The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin.

The complex story of the man, the Manhattan Project and ushering in the Atomic age.

• Prometheus stole fire and gave it to men. But when Zeus learned of it, he ordered Hephaestus to nail his body to Mount Caucasus. On it Prometheus was nailed and kept bound for many years. Every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night.**

"Resilience - Why Things Bounce Back" by Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy.

This book offers an interesting perspective on systems, behaviours and their relationships which allow for resiliency through adverse situations, be it in nature, communities or as individuals. 

• There is some interesting commentary on "gaming theory" and what you need to win. If you are playing a computer it's a "tit for tat" strategy. If you are playing a person however, it's a "tit, tit for tat" strategy because people sometimes do things and don't appreciate what they have done — It's all about the benefit of the doubt when it comes to people it seems.***

This is a great age to satisfy your curiosity as everything is a "click" away on our smartphone, but I think there is a depth that comes from reading a book a little bit better. No matter how you satisfy your curiosity, the Awareness that is born from it will help with your creative problem solving.

As I flipped through these books, I found an old boarding pass (or two) that I used as a marker. 

iamgpe

* From the "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" and 42 fits easily on a T-shirt.

** By Apollodorus, The Library, book 1:7, second century B.C.

*** Page 160-162. Tit for tat is an English saying meaning "equivalent retaliation". It is also a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. Anatol Rapoport first introduced this strategy in Robert Axelrod's two tournaments, held around 1980. Notably, it was (on both occasions) both the simplest strategy and the most successful in direct competition. (Wikapedia)