1.                As someone who used to spend a lot of time waiting for real estate clients to show up – I know that clients / appointments / people in general are often late. If you’ve got a book with you, the time can be wisely used.

2.                Books can be heavy and if necessary, a large book can be used as a weapon of self protection.

3.                Doctor’s can’t tell time. Ok – so I‘m sure they can, but they’re not usually too fussed with sticking to it when you have an appointment. While away those hours reading a good book.

4.                Waiting room magazines are usually from at least 5 years ago do you really want to see pictures from Fergie’s wedding (the Duchess of York variety, not the Black eyed Peas’ Fergie) again? Read a book instead. And also - do you really want to be fondling something so many sick people have held and spluttered over?

5.                Books can save your life. Baghdad, Iraq - A US soldier serving in iraq believes his Bible saved his life after it stopped a sniper's bullet. 22-year-old Army Private First Class Brendan Schweigart had his Bible tucked in a pocket beneath his bullet proof shield when he was shot with a high powered rifle while on a mission in Iraq. The bullet missed his vital organs, came out his chest, and lodged in his Bible before it could do more damage.

6.                Having a book on public transport makes you less of a target for the chatty grandma type or that guy who just can’t seem to observe personal space

7.                Kids play sport, sometimes not well, read a book instead. Also consider using a calming book as the antidote to being one of those crazy sidelines parents!

8.                We all have an unreliable friend. Rather than roster him or her off the social calendar. Tell them your lunch date is 1.30 (when it’s really 1.45) and take a book just in case.

9.                Books are ideal when you’re stuck in the car with boring company. Discard this tip if like me, the motion makes you a little queasy (books + vomit = a little hard to read).

10.           Your computer crashes, read 5 pages, there’s power outage, read 15 more.

11.           Handbags are so big now anyway – you may as well have a book (or an entire library in there). Guys, get a satchel or a man-bag, I think they’re hot.

12.           I remember when a trip to the hairdresser took half an hour, these days with the shampoo, head massage, colour, foils, trim, layering, complimentary choccies and beer, blow dry, straighten I’m out for half a day. Read a book instead of listening to the gossip.

13.           Speaker Pat Mesiti’s (www.mesiti.com) on board. He offers $1,000 to anyone who catches him without a book in his bag. Apparently his teenage daughter asks each day.

14.           Books make you look intellectual (glasses, a pencil in your hair and a good solid pocket protector also add to the geek-chic).

15.           I love a good airline magazine, but they tell people to take them home, people take them home and then I rarely get to read one! Take a book as a back up.

16.           If you don't know what the person you're mean to meet looks like (this happens to me way too often) arrive 20 minutes early, read your book and then it’s up to them to find you.

17.           And finally – if even Paris can do it, surely you can too!

Watching Indiana Jones (of all things) last night with my husband I was reminded of one of the more memorable places I’ve ever been.

I was 21 years old and on my first trip overseas. A Contiki tour through Europe – comprising something ridiculous like 13 countries in 5 weeks. Many would say, not enough time to enjoy any of it and I might agree but for the fact that at 21, I had no idea what in Europe I wanted to see.

Sure I had vague images of the Colosseum and the Eiffel tower but aside from these bastions of what Europe was in my just post teenage mind – I was stumped as to what I actually wanted to see. So I just went with the flow. Loving almost everything I was, albeit briefly, exposed to.

Of all that I most adored on this trip: cobbled streets in Florence, friendly bocce players in Barcelona, the hushed silence in Notre Dame, one place chilled me but also stuck with me in a really memorable way.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade reminded me of it last night in a scene where an Austrian woman (a bad-guy mind you) holds back a tear at a Nazi book burning site in Berlin.

When I visited Bebelplatz, Berlin at first I didn’t understand what the empty shelves illuminated underground meant.
 

I didn’t realise I was standing up on the site where Nazis burnt over 20,000 books in 1933. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz)

The monument is elegant and simple and is something I’ll never forget.  Nearby to it there is a plaque which quotes Heinrich Heine, a German poet: "Where books are burned, in the end people will burn."

Thanks Indiana Jones for triggering a memory so powerful. Thanks to the tour guide who adequately explained Bebelplatz to me. Thanks to a world where, thanks to the internet, expansive libraries and blogs like this – we are all free to read, grow and learn.

Kirsty Dunphey is one of Australia’s most publicised young entrepreneurs and is the founder of http://www.reallysold.com - the ultimate tool to help real estate agents write amazing advertisements. The youngest ever winner of the Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year award, Kirsty started her first business at 15, her own real estate agency at 21, was a self-made millionaire at 23 and a self-made multi-millionaire at 25. For more information on Kirsty or either of her books – Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million and Retired at 27, If I can do it anyone can, or to sign up to her weekly newsletter head to: http://www.kirstydunphey.com