Tyler Cowen is an “infovore.”  An economist (he wrote The Great Stagnation – a terrific, provocative book!), he reads more than anyone else that I know of (I think he may even read more than our blogging colleague, Bob Morris.  And that’s saying something).  Mr. Cowen travels a lot, and he always has a stack of books with him.  When he finishes with a book he simply leaves the book on the bench/table at the airport for some lucky (if the book is good) or unlucky (if the book is not so good) soul to find.  He makes quick judgments, and if a book is not worth reading carefully, he discards it pretty quickly.

I have just read the first sections of his book:  The Age of the Infovore:  Succeeding in the Information Economy.  Here are a few key excerpts:

In bad economic times, people…engage in more projects for self-improvement and self-education.
To thrive in an era that produces and devours information like never before, you need to become more adept at finding, sorting, and absorbing ideas, news, and all kinds of data.  The age of the infovore has arrived.
Coping with information involves both cognition and overt behavior.

The book will help you understand how we need to order (“categorize”) our intake of information.  And the book reminds us that, for so very many people, reading, processing information, creating systems to quickly retrieve information – these are at the top of the job skills needed for this information economy

If we are infovores in an infovore world, we ought to aim at getting better at it.  This book can help.