You may note that I have cleared out the seldom-updated “Reading List” section on the sidebar of this blog. The reason? Here are the books I finished reading in 2013:
- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
- A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel
- America’s Unwritten Constitution by Akhil Amar
That’s it — all three of them. I never even got to the books whose titles begin with B.
Seriously, this is pathetic. While there are several other books I started to read last year, the results speak for themselves.
I resolve to do better. Why is this important? First, I always learn something from reading, fiction or non-fiction. Books expose me to new ideas and different ways of thinking about the topics that interest me. Even if a book only serves to validate my currently-held points of view, the author’s formulation is usually more coherent than mine. Second, reading more books will peel my eyeballs away from the computer screen and perhaps reverse the decline in my attention span. Third, reading books of all types can only help improve my writing. Good books serve as examples of how to use words and organize ideas. Bad books, annoying as they are, have value as counterexamples.
So, my aim is to finish one book each month, for the rest of this year. This may seem like a modest goal to you, but it represents a four-fold improvement for me. I will count a book as “finished” if it turns out to be a bad book and I make a conscious decision to stop reading it. The clock starts now. I intend to finish “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman in the next two weeks. I will then turn my attention to “The Art Spirit” by Robert Henri and go from there. You can follow my progress in the 2014 Reading List (see sidebar).
If any of you have must-read book suggestions, let me know. My non-fiction-to-fiction ratio has historically been about 20:1 but don’t let that stop you from mentioning a good novel.
The local news can sometimes reveal a lot about a place, in relatively few words.
• Headline in the Citizen-Times: “Asheville Cops: Woman Illegally Practiced Massage.” The story begins: “A [local] woman is facing charges in Asheville including practicing massage therapy without a license.” At this point, you might think, what a shame that she didn’t finish massage school and get her license first. Don’t the cops have better things to do than go door-to-door checking licenses? The story goes on: “She’s accused of falsely reporting to police that a man broke into her motel room and attempted to rape her, according to warrants. [She] also was served with two outstanding warrants for possession of drug paraphernalia.” Oh. I think this is known in journalism school as burying the lead. Good thing the cops don’t go around checking writing licenses.
• Item in the Asheville Area Community Calendar: “Concealed Carry Handgun Class, Feb. 10-11, 6-10 p.m. $60 military personnel, $80 civilians.” Lesson Number One: remember to remove your concealed handgun prior to your massage.
• A Citizen-Times article titled, “Park Spent $8,300 on Smokies Rescue,” goes into lengthy detail how “Great Smoky Mountains National Park spent more than $8,000 in overtime and supplies to rescue three hikers stranded in the park last month.” But that’s not the end of it, the article takes pains to point out. “The total cost of the rescue effort is unclear. A helicopter from the N.C. Helicopter and Aquatic Rescue team was used to airlift the men. The N.C. Department of Public Safety says the N.C. National Guard provided the helicopter for the rescue. Officials from the National Guard could not be reached Friday.” [Perhaps they were attending concealed carry class.] To drive the point home, the reporter tells us that “the park spent more than $250,000 on more than 100 incidents” in 2012. Wow. Now, what do you think readers had to say about this? There were four comments.
Its time that those rescued start being charged something for their mere stupidity.
What lunacy! The way is littered with the ghosts of idiots.
I wonder if these three unprepared men have medical insurance. Or did they feel that they were “invinsible’?
I agree they should be charged a hefty service fee for having their lives saved.
The way is littered indeed.