My new year's resolution is to read all my own books. There should be a rule somewhere that makes it so you can't purchase or receive any new books until you've read all the ones that you already have. But then Barnes and Noble would go out of business. It's pretty silly, though, some of the books on my shelves that I have read and which ones I haven't. I have Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Neitzsche next to Snow Falling on Cedars. Guess which one I've read? Hint...not the one more recently turned into a major motion picture. It's ridiculous. The Complete Kama Sutra is next to The Buying of the President 2004. Again, which one would you guess I've read? Wrong...I've had that stupid Kama Sutra book for years and I've never so much as read the introduction.
Reading has most certainly taken a backseat to other forms of entertainment. It's a shame, but at the same time...all things will go extinct eventually. Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting the written word in the same category as the 8-track or anything, it's just that, I can't invite friends over to read with them, by the time I get in bed I can't stay awake for more than a page or two, the bus ride isn't quite long enough for me to get involved with a story before I have to get off, I get car sick on long trips if I look down too much. So what's there to do? Do I become a hermit to make sure I get the recommended daily allowance of intellectual stimulation? Or is that being fulfilled by The Daily Show?
And honestly, much of what comes hot off the press now is as much drivel as you're average thirty minute sit-com. I mean, Paris Hilton has been published for Christsake. What does that say about the world of books in the modern century? That they're nothing more than merchandizing for bad reality television. It's all pulp fiction. Of course, there are exceptions. But those are always a thousand pages or more and who has time to read that without becoming a hermit? It's a viscious cycle.
Ok, let's go see how many pages of Harry Potter I can get through before falling asleep. My guess is not even a chapter.
2 keep(s) me blogging:
If you can't get through Half Blood Prince, then give it back. You don't deserve to read it. Not to be swept up by a Harry Potter book, why it's sacrilige!
The thing is, most books have already been made into movies or on PBS. I saw "Snow Falling on Cedars" now I don't have to read the book. My friend William let me "Guns, Germs and Steel" then the series came out on PBS and I gave him the book back before I read it.
I love Michael Shermer's books but they don't make it to movies or PBS, probably because if anyone other than the 10% of us who don't make up the Moron Majority understood them, Shermer's name would end up on the Homeland Security "No Fly" list.
BTW, nobody actually READS the "Kama Sutra", they just look at the pictures!
Post a Comment