As b_b or someone said over in the New Yorker thread about multitasking and internet access and tabs fucking up our reading, I don't really get it. "Digital nativity" is a good phrase, but it means different things to each of us. To me it means I can read even more. To most, apparently, it means being so overwhelmed you don't read anything except Facebook posts. I misapprehend how one goes from the former to the latter. It also doesn't seem like a bad thing to spend every spare moment reading -- depending how you define spare moment. I bet your memory isn't that poor, and clearly your attention span is fine when you're interested in something, if you couldn't put down Gaiman. And people change. When I was 15, I had serious trouble reading nonfiction, because there was so much great fiction in the world that I hadn't yet read, and it was easy. Like, Wheel of Time was easy in the typical sense of mowing through 100 pages of bad prose in an hour, but also Kafka was comparatively easy, because it was fantastical. So it was fun for 15-year-old me. Now I'm about even on my pursuit of hard Nature Magazine nonfiction and what b_b aptly called pleasure reading: fiction, pop stuff and biographies -- the Lay's chips of content. Maybe you will experience something similar. This is a great subject, though, because I really have no idea what's going on in the minds of my peers who only read a couple books a year (and America as a whole, which is spiraling into this mindset). My roommate has been trying and failing to reread Harry Potter for six months. At what point is "the internet" simply not an adequate excuse? And what does that even mean? It isn't homogenous. I am never the sort of person to recommend spreadsheet approaches to this sort of thing, but maybe you should try something along the lines of this. Keep a record, or whatever. My record was just a notepad file with the titles. But the willpower still has to come from somewhere. I dunno. lil's the damn teacher. -- What are the seven books? Be careful what you wish for.Sidenote: when is bl00 back? I miss the old bastard.
Now I'm about even on my pursuit of hard Nature Magazine nonfiction and what b_b aptly called pleasure reading: fiction, pop stuff and biographies -- the Lay's chips of content. Maybe you will experience something similar. Really appreciate this perspective and your advice. Thanks, flags. 1. Melville - Moby Dick 2. Keizer - Privacy 3. Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 4. Heinrichs - Thank You For Arguing 5. Zinn - A People's History of the United States 6. Vonnegut - If This Isn't Nice, What Is? 7. Asimov - Foundation (#hubskiliterarything#) (Tag broke again. Am I doing something wrong? mk forwardslash)I bet your memory isn't that poor, and clearly your attention span is fine when you're interested in something, if you couldn't put down Gaiman. And people change. When I was 15, I had serious trouble reading nonfiction, because there was so much great fiction in the world that I hadn't yet read, and it was easy. Like, Wheel of Time was easy in the typical sense of mowing through 100 pages of bad prose in an hour, but also Kafka was comparatively easy, because it was fantastical. So it was fun for 15-year-old me.
I didn't remember Foundation was one of the hubski mailed books. Great. It should be treasured. Complexity, I think that project should continue and expand -- but I'm selfish for wanting that; it stems from my desire to receive books in the mail, though I've read all the books currently in circulation. If you think of a way to broaden the scope that doesn't put all of the work on you, I'm all in. I wish there was more general enthusiasm.