Al Mohler laments the passing of the printed Britannica. “My guess is that, all things being equal, a boy my age riding along in the family’s Prius this summer is more likely to be playing Angry Birds on his iPad. Left behind is the unexpected serendipity of reading about the mating habits of aardvarks. Is this progress?”
Heh, he has a point, though it would be better served by another example, don’t you think?
John Plotz describes what’s in a database called What Middletown Read, “the borrowing records of the Muncie Public Library between 1891 and 1902.”
“It’s possible to read the Bible, study the Bible, and memorize large portions of the Bible, while missing the whole point of the Bible. It’s entirely possible, in other words, to read the stories and miss the Story,” writes Tullian Tchividjian.
Just a reading report today. Two books (one of which I finished), that I don’t think require full reviews.
The first was another Dick Francis, Straight. Reviewing Francis is kind of a redundancy. The details differ, and provide a lot of interest (don’t get me wrong), but in general the things you can say about one apply to all of them. However, Straight did displease me in two minor ways, which I shall elucidate:
First, an extramarital affair (actually two of them) was treated more sympathetically than I like. But hey, we all know I’m a prig.
Second, the hero, a jockey, starts out the story with a broken ankle. And he steadfastly refuses to let a doctor put a cast on it, even though the bad guys keep re-injuring it—often on purpose—throughout the story. If you just tape it up, apparently, you don’t lose muscle tone, and you can race again sooner. All I could think about that was, “Hey kid, you’re not young forever.” Eventually age will bring pains, and this guy was asking to be crippled at sixty.
The second book is an obscure one, The Geronimo Breach, by Russell Blake. I got it free for Kindle, and thought it might be an amusing light thriller. I think it’s meant to be comic, but I couldn’t be sure, because We Were Not Amused. The main character is a drunken, slightly corrupt diplomat in Panama, who agrees to help smuggle a Colombian citizen out of the country, not knowing the CIA is after him. I plowed through a lot of scenes of drinking and vomiting, and a fair number of scenes of violence committed by evil American agents, before I gave up on the thing. Not a likeable character in the heap.
I generally feel guilty cutting a book loose before it’s done, but knowing I didn’t pay for it helps.
When I was a boy, every school child knew about this, but I suspect they don’t teach it in schools anymore. In honor of Presidents Day, a snippet from Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years:
Having learned to read Abe read all the books he could lay his hands on. Dennis [Hanks], years later, tried to remember his cousin’s reading habits. “I never seen Abe after he was twelve ‘at he didn’t have a book some’ers ’round. He’d put a book inside his shirt an’ fill his pants pockets with corn dodgers, an’ go off to plow or hoe. When noon come he’d set down under a tree, an’ read an’ eat. In the house at night, he’d tilt a cheer by the chimbly, an’ set on his backbone an’ read. I’ve seen a feller come in an’ look at him, Abe not knowin’ anybody was round, an’ sneak out agin like a cat, an’ say, ‘Well, I’ll be darned.’ It didn’t seem natural, nohow, to see a feller read like that. Aunt Sairy’s never let the children pester him. She always said Abe was goin’ to be a great man some day. An’ she wasn’t goin’ to have him hendered.”
They heard Abe saying, “The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll git me a book I ain’t read.”
Jonathan Gourlay stops reading books after being sucked into episodes of Star Trek: Voyager on his iPhone. It gets ugly. (via A Few More Pages)
Victor Davis Hanson writes on reading:
But you object that at least our current economy of expression cuts out wasted words and clauses, a sort of slimmed-down, electronic communication? Perhaps, but it also turns almost everything into instant bland hot cereal, as if we should gulp down oatmeal at every meal and survive well enough without the bother of salad, main course, and dessert. Each day our vocabulary shrinks, our thought patterns stagnate — if they are not renewed through fresh literature or intelligent conversation. Unfortunately these days, those who read are few and silent; those who don’t, numerous and heard. In this drought, Dante’s Inferno and William Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico provide needed storms of new words, complex syntax, and fresh ideas.
(via Books, Inq.)
In response, D.G. Myers writes about reading fiction specifically, saying it makes a man full. Not his stomach, we’re talking about making the man himself full. Get a snack if you’re hungry. (via Dave Lull)
Sherry is compiling on long list of 2011 book lists which vary in focus, some being recommendations, some being what someone has read. Here is her second list. Here is her first list. And there’s more to come.
“All drama is about lies,” says David Mamet, and he goes on here. A very nice quote.
Also on Tumblr: Awesome people reading, like Ewan McGregor (second link via Jeffrey O.)
