I love to read. Both for pleasure and to learn something. Which has its own pleasures. I read to escape. I read to help clarify ideas that have been bouncing around in my head. For fun, for knowledge, for wisdom. To commune with minds long gone from the earth but whose thoughts and ideas and emotions and passions still resonate with me.
Readers all know each other. We are all of the same tribe. We might read different things and we might read for different reasons but we all love to read. And reading has its sibling passions: books and book collecting, libraries and reading rooms, spoken word and writing. Journals, dairies and notebooks. When I met my wife I knew that we both loved books and reading. We bonded over shared authors, great stories and a passion for books.
How do I read? We all have our favorite ways to read. Some do it on the commute, some sitting in the park. Travel reading, bathroom reading, quiet middle of the night, early morning, sleepy afternoon reading. Some listen to audiobooks, some read kindles, some only paperbacks, some only classics. Some people read their way through genres: sci fi, mystery, horror, romance. So read their way though authors: Jane Austen, Dickens, Toni Morrison. Some people carry a paperback with them where ever they go. Some hide behind it on the subway or the bus, leaving the weary world for the enchantment or nightmare of a good book. My reading consists of: a half hour first thing in the morning. Planned reading following the ideas in Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Educated Mind. I also read my kindle just before bed. I also read kindle on my computer and on my iphone. I also read a book, sometimes at work, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes on vacation. I also listen to audiobooks. I have a two hour commute everyday. I also go for a 45 minute walk everyday and sometimes I listen then.
What do I read? My own taste is eclectic. I read a mixture of the classics with new novels, genre with literature, non fiction with fiction. I love biographies and memiors, science books and popular studies. Sci fi, mystery, horror, fantasy, literary fiction. Business and economics. Philosophy and religion, history and essays.
What am I reading now? As of 24th of July, 2019. I am reading (including audio books) the following books: 1) Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I am on the last volume of the 8 volume folio edition. I have been reading this as part of my SWB inspired 30 minutes in the morning. Since October of last year. I chose it in honor of our current state of dismal politics. Bad governance goes back a long time. 2) Margaret Mitchell. Gone With The Wind. Listening to on audio. A very popular book published in the 1930's and a classic example of the popular myth of the Lost Cause. Racist and silly but a great read. As an artifact of the Jim Crow south in post Birth of a Nation, Klan Crazy middle America it is valuable. 3) Jeff Vandermeer Acceptance, Vol 3 of the Southern Reach trilogy. Read through Kindle. Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends. Read on my Kindle. James Joyce by Richard Ellmann. Read on a regular old book. Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family. Paper back book. I also have about half a dozen books started in my TBR pile but these I am putting my most effort in.
Plan: to finish up Gibbon by September and move on to Vol II of Moncrieff's translation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Finish Rooney and Vandermeer and move on to Normal People. Move Slaves in the Family to audio.
Great Themes. Read on a theme. As I grow older the theme of time and mortality, sickness and death, religion and philosophy tend to occupy my thinking. Last few years I have read Dante and Lucretius, Genesis and existentialism to try and grasp some of these ideas. What is time?
My next read might be also The Gospels in a new translation along with a read of a classic of atheism. Maybe Hume or Russell.
Ideal. My ideal, as I edge toward retirement, is the "book lined study". My authority on this is Michel de Montaigne and his tower in his beautiful section of France at the end of the 16th century. I see him among his beloved books, the sunlight pouring through the windows, the cat sleepily flicking his tail. Or Edward Gibbon, immersed into his world of deep dusty volumes reading and writing his history.
So this is the blog to follow my reading and my thoughts on reading. Also books about books, about reading, about writing.
Readers all know each other. We are all of the same tribe. We might read different things and we might read for different reasons but we all love to read. And reading has its sibling passions: books and book collecting, libraries and reading rooms, spoken word and writing. Journals, dairies and notebooks. When I met my wife I knew that we both loved books and reading. We bonded over shared authors, great stories and a passion for books.
How do I read? We all have our favorite ways to read. Some do it on the commute, some sitting in the park. Travel reading, bathroom reading, quiet middle of the night, early morning, sleepy afternoon reading. Some listen to audiobooks, some read kindles, some only paperbacks, some only classics. Some people read their way through genres: sci fi, mystery, horror, romance. So read their way though authors: Jane Austen, Dickens, Toni Morrison. Some people carry a paperback with them where ever they go. Some hide behind it on the subway or the bus, leaving the weary world for the enchantment or nightmare of a good book. My reading consists of: a half hour first thing in the morning. Planned reading following the ideas in Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Educated Mind. I also read my kindle just before bed. I also read kindle on my computer and on my iphone. I also read a book, sometimes at work, sometimes in the bathroom, sometimes on vacation. I also listen to audiobooks. I have a two hour commute everyday. I also go for a 45 minute walk everyday and sometimes I listen then.
What do I read? My own taste is eclectic. I read a mixture of the classics with new novels, genre with literature, non fiction with fiction. I love biographies and memiors, science books and popular studies. Sci fi, mystery, horror, fantasy, literary fiction. Business and economics. Philosophy and religion, history and essays.
What am I reading now? As of 24th of July, 2019. I am reading (including audio books) the following books: 1) Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I am on the last volume of the 8 volume folio edition. I have been reading this as part of my SWB inspired 30 minutes in the morning. Since October of last year. I chose it in honor of our current state of dismal politics. Bad governance goes back a long time. 2) Margaret Mitchell. Gone With The Wind. Listening to on audio. A very popular book published in the 1930's and a classic example of the popular myth of the Lost Cause. Racist and silly but a great read. As an artifact of the Jim Crow south in post Birth of a Nation, Klan Crazy middle America it is valuable. 3) Jeff Vandermeer Acceptance, Vol 3 of the Southern Reach trilogy. Read through Kindle. Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends. Read on my Kindle. James Joyce by Richard Ellmann. Read on a regular old book. Edward Ball, Slaves in the Family. Paper back book. I also have about half a dozen books started in my TBR pile but these I am putting my most effort in.
Plan: to finish up Gibbon by September and move on to Vol II of Moncrieff's translation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Finish Rooney and Vandermeer and move on to Normal People. Move Slaves in the Family to audio.
Great Themes. Read on a theme. As I grow older the theme of time and mortality, sickness and death, religion and philosophy tend to occupy my thinking. Last few years I have read Dante and Lucretius, Genesis and existentialism to try and grasp some of these ideas. What is time?
My next read might be also The Gospels in a new translation along with a read of a classic of atheism. Maybe Hume or Russell.
Ideal. My ideal, as I edge toward retirement, is the "book lined study". My authority on this is Michel de Montaigne and his tower in his beautiful section of France at the end of the 16th century. I see him among his beloved books, the sunlight pouring through the windows, the cat sleepily flicking his tail. Or Edward Gibbon, immersed into his world of deep dusty volumes reading and writing his history.
So this is the blog to follow my reading and my thoughts on reading. Also books about books, about reading, about writing.
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