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For the last month or so, in fact, for much of the year, I’ve been in kind of a reading frenzy. I must be averaging around three a week. But over the last week or so it kind of burned itself out — and got replaced with a new one.
A number of the last several books I read were somewhat of a struggle to complete. It wasn’t the book. It was more I was losing focus, regardless of whether it was fiction or nonfiction. It is now to the point where I’ve picked up about a dozen books over the last four days or so and am lucky if I get 10 pages or more in before putting it down. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I went more than a day without having a book I was currently reading.
Saturday morning I decided to try to turn the torpor to “good” use. I’ve been thinking of culling the bookshelves for a while. I figured my current apathy toward all genres might make me a bit more objective. I think that turned into a fever of its own. By the time the weekend was over, 74 books were off the shelves and in boxes. My kids are coming home this week so they’ll get first shot at hand-me-downs but then the books are either off to the used book store or being donated.
During the process I found books that still had store receipts in them. I was somewhat embarrassed to discover that a handful of receipts were 10 or more years old — and it didn’t look like I had opened them since putting them on the shelf. Maybe they will find a good home where they will get the attention they deserve.
There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs.
Henry Ward Beecher, “Summer Reading”
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- On Censorship (“Even more serious is the growing acceptance of the don’t-rock-the-boat response to those artists who do rock it, the growing agreement that censorship can be justified when certain interest groups, or genders, or faiths declare themselves affronted by a piece of work.”)
Blog Headlines of the Week
Bookish Linkage
- A Harvard Business Review study shows Amazon reviews of books are, on average, at least as good as those of professional book critics. (via)
- While not advocating banning any books, Flavorwire suggests 10 books far more deserving of being banned from libraries than 50 Shades of Grey (which, by the way, is the bestselling book of the year on Amazon).
- I am almost embarrassed to admit that I am one of these people, although I bought them for my wife.
- Flavorwire also has a list of 10 young adult novels that “scarred us for life.”
- Characters who swear in teen fiction are more likely to be wealthier, more attractive and more popular or socially influential, according to a study by Brigham Young University.
- Where do e-books go when you die?
- The Art of Passionately Hating at Least One Classic Author
- Amazon list the top 20 most well-read cities — based on its data of all book, magazine and newspaper sales. Or, put another way, the top 20 most Amazon-addicted cities.
- New Vermont bookstore says to customers, “Bring in an Amazon Box & Get 25% Off a Book.” (via)
- Why rock novels rarely work
- Blooms of Darkness by Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld won the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
- The shortlist for the first Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were announced — and I’ve actually read one of the three finalists in each category.
Nonbookish Linkage
Weird Shit of the Week
You go to sleep dreamin’ how you would
Be a different kind if you thought you could
But you come awake the way you are instead
Counting Crows, “All My Friends,” This Desert Life
An article in today’s local daily couldn’t help but bring to mind John Scalzi’s sadly timeless “Being Poor,” which I’ve mentioned several times. At least the headline is blunt: “Fears of hunger grow in S. Dakota.” The story itself reports on a study showing 12.6 percent of the state’s residents are “food insecure.”
Notice how even nonprofits interested in the problem seem to need to use euphemisms when talking about people going hungry. That’s why “Being Poor,” which is excerpted in a recently published “poverty manifesto,” is so striking. It’s reality, not euphemism. Consider the following from it:
- Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.
- Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have to make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.
- Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.
- Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
- Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.
Just making sure your diet has more reality than doublespeak.
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara
Actually, I ask myself that question about blogging with some regularity. In fact, I occasionally consider abandoning the blog, a thought that comes up when I’ve got a number of books to review and feel a bit pressed for time. A lot of people probably think bloggers blog because they believe everyone is obligated entitled to hear their opinion. There may be a bit of truth to that but Mark Athitakis recently mentioned something that resonated with me.
Writing about a panel he was on that discussed “The Future of the Book Review,” Athitakis shared his responses to questions sent him by the moderator. He noted that book bloggers have “removed the Olympian tone of the traditional book review,” tending to write more personally. But here’s what really struck me: “Any book blog that lasts for a while is a reflection of the enthusiasm somebody brings to it–because they’re more likely than not writing for free, they’re doing it because they care about books.”
I think that’s perhaps a fair statement of why I keep blogging. I like having an outlet but the enthusiasm isn’t for blogging; it’s for books. I hold out a small hope that sharing my love of books and reading might make that passion a bit contagious. I’ll tell anyone who will listen exactly what I told my kids — a love of reading enables you to accomplish almost anything.
It’s been just more than seven years since I started doing book reviews. In that time, I’ve averaged about three reviews a month here. And they are about as far from an Olympian tone as you can get. But my ardor for books tends to overcome those moments when I’m asking why I do this.
For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.
Amy Lowell, “The Boston Atheneum,” A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass
Bulletin Board
- Siouxland Libraries now has a mobile app. I’ve been playing with it for about a week and the speed with which it searches the catalog is quite impressive.
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
Old age means realizing you will never own all the dogs you wanted to.
Joe Gores
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Disclaimer 
Additionally, some links on this blog go to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There is no additional cost to you. Contact me You can e-mail me at prairieprogressive at gmaildotcom.
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