Shuffling into Intersections

Puzzled by my current reading. Just finished Ishamael Beah's "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier." Concurrently working through Jessica Livingston's "Founders at Work" and Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World."

So what is the connection between child soldiers in Sierra Leone; founders such as Steve Wozniak, Paul Graham and Craig Newmark; and Medicis and silver mines of Peru? I have no idea.

All are excellent, but my current selections seem a bit like selecting shuffle on an iPod (is this an option on Kindle?). Guess it will be a test to see if I can see any intersections. Maybe I will see a pattern or get an insight. Maybe not.

I think "shuffling" is one way to foster to intersectional creativity and innovation. The random events in a day are a shuffle... are you paying attention to the hands you are being dealt? What are you doing to get a variety of ideas from different cultures and disciplines? Are you keeping track of them?