I am currently developing two books. Their (recently changed) working titles are:

UPDATE 2016-07-10: THE WORKING TITLE OF “GETTING SMARTER” IS NOW COGNITIVE Productivity with MacOS®: 7 Principles for Getting Smarter. The CogZest web page for this book is here.

1. Getting Smarter: 7 Principles to Improve Yourself with MacOS®, and
2. Discontinuities: Limerence, Art and Mind.
   
   The first book’s subtitle is likely going to change, but that will not affect its scope.

I had expected to publish these books incrementally on Leanpub by now. I haven’t because:

1. I’ve been juggling my projects at CogZest, CogSci Apps Corp. and Simon Fraser University where I am Adjunct Prof both in the Faculty of Education and in Cognitive Science. (One day, I will blog about the tradeoffs between focusing and pursuing breadth, and about resources vs. resourcefulness.)
2. Late last fall, my vision for Discontinuities became much more ambitious, which led to the new subtitle (Limerence, Art and Mind).
3. Getting Smarter will mostly contain screencasts; Discontinuities will have multimedia. But Leanpub will only support such rich media when they support an enhanced version of Markdown, Markua. They haven’t publicly committed to a date for that yet.

I’m extremely excited about these two books.

 

Getting Smarter Book

The current blurb about this book on its Leanpub page is

You spend many hours a week processing new information—articles, blog posts, books, screencasts, videos, lectures, meetings, etc. Can you easily remember and apply the most precious knowledge gems you have encountered?
This book is loaded with screencasts that demonstrate how to assess, select, organize, master and apply knowledge gems. You will improve how you manage your cognitive projects. You will take ownership of your cognitive life.
The seven principles in this book will help you use knowledge and MacOS® to become a smarter, more effective person.
This book is based on Luc P. Beaudoin’s first book, Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective..

These screencasts will make it even easier for readers to understand the very extensive collection of tips provided in part 3 of Cognitive Productivity. In case you haven’t read Cognitive Productivity yet:

• Chapter 9 helps you to navigate your information processing, projects and knowledge resources (books, articles, videos, podcasts, lectures, etc.)
• Chapter 10 describes the problem of inspecting knowledge resources.
• Chapter 11 helps you to assess and select knowledge resources. This is to help you identify resources that are worth delving, and to avoid seductive distractors.
• Chapter 12 provides extensive tips for “delving” resources (analyzing them, extracting their knowledge gems, etc.)
• Chapters 13 and 14 and help you master resources by productively practicing with knowledge gems you’ve extracted.

Getting Smarter is an e-pub e-book (compare Paperless). It will only be available on Leanpub and iBookstore. Not Amazon. It will focus mainly on Apple’s OS X operating system, which is where we recommend you do most of your serious reading. But it will also have tips for iOS.

You can subscribe to Getting Smarter‘s email distribution list on its Leanpub web page.

 

Discontinuities Book

My Discontinuities: Limerence, Art and Mind book is currently described quite vaguely on its Leanpub page as

On romantic love, romantic grief, mind and art. There will be essays, responses to art, and some art. By ‘art’ I mean literature, film, song, music, photography, painting, etc. I will address the problem of Developing Oneself with the Art of Others.
This looks like a farrago. But there will be unity in this project which will become clearer when this web page is updated.

Like Getting Smarter, this will be an e-pub e-book. It will only be available on Leanpub and iBookstore. Not Amazon.

I won’t resume writing this book until we publish Getting Smarter. However, this project occupies me when I am away from my desk. In fact, one of its creative chapters is begging me to grow into a book of its own. (Projects seem to have a life of their own…)

You can subscribe to the email list on the Discontinuities web page.

Other Book Projects

There are several other books I currently “plan” to write over the next decade. I can’t commit publicly to them, let alone to their specific time frames. Other projects may capture my attention before them. Or after the next couple of books, I might decide I need a long break from writing books. Although I have loved writing since I was eleven, if not younger, it is taxing to write books while running other projects. Winston Churchill is a role model for me in this respect. But maybe I can’t match the Nobel laureate :). Still, if the following projects don’t lead to books, they will probably at least lead to articles.

• A book on emotions. I have a co-author for this one and a tantalizing title that writes the book.
• A book alluded to above. (I dare not be more specific. Let’s just say it’s different and it’s the project that is pulling me most strongly.)
• A book on great minds in cognitive science and related endeavours. There will be at least a chapter on Aaron Sloman’s work.
• A book on the work of Aaron Sloman. This would probably be a two-year project.

Knowing where I would like to go helps me direct my thinking, reading, and interactions with people.