I have other struggles. In fact, I've long thought about putting all my cards on the library table and telling you the truth:
I don't read books.
Or as I like to say at parties: I don't "read," you know, "books." Buy them, start them and almost never get to the end. But look, I'm not alone: "the crazy thing is that I maintain the belief that I'm still reading a book for many years as the pile of books I believe I'm reading piles up. One thing about reading on line -- especially reading to blog -- is that what you don't finish evanesces. Once the day has passed, you feel utterly absolved of any obligation to go back to anything."
This is like a weight lifted from my shoulders. And it has me wondering why, if reading habits are changing, do we have to make a value judgment about it? Maybe it's OK. Maybe books are to reading what opera is to music-listening. Maybe there's plenty of other rich reading experiences to go around.
Speaking of rich -- the September Vogue is here and I believe it now outweighs Anna Wintour herself. No one's finishing this thing.
I read blogs just for words lke that:
ReplyDelete“evanesces”
Damn that’s good English.
It is! Very few people can use that word so effortlessly. It's hard to say what I liked best about this Althouse post -- that she admits to the pile of books, that she so exactly describes "reading to blog" or that she writes about all of it so elegantly.
ReplyDeleteMe? I’m trying to work anneal into a post at some point.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Vogue is heavier, like, world record heavier.