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How many books I’m reading at a time is a moving target. Over the past few years I’m guessing it’s usually been one, but occasionally two or three. I’ve recently embarked on a somewhat different approach based on where I do my reading.
I read virtually every weeknight in our family room and/or in bed, a task made much easier by how rarely I watch television. If I have time, I will also squeeze in 10-30 minutes in the morning after reading the paper. Since reading the paper doesn’t take too long any more, I get to read more often than not. Weekends, of course, are where and when I want.
In part due to the length of some of the nonfiction I’ve read this year and am contemplating, it seems I am far more attentive to nonfiction in the morning. As a result, I’ve instituted a loose genre divider. I read nonfiction in the morning and fiction at night. It works out fairly well as I can leave the nonfiction books in the room in which I read them.
This may lead to nonfiction getting shorted a bit because I don’t spend as much time reading in the morning. But this does enable me to more easily divide my attention between two books. And, from a morbid standpoint, I’m on the downhill slide of how much time I have left to read books. I’m going to grab as much time as I can.
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
It’s not always easy to distinguish between existentialism and a bad mood.
Matthew Stover, Blade of Tyshalle
It is rather stunning. Terry Deary is a children’s author whose books were the seventh most borrowed from British libraries last year. Yet his view of libraries is that “no one has an entitlement to read a book for free, at the expense of the author, the publisher and the … tax payer.” According to him, “This is not the Victorian age when libraries were created to allow the impoverished to have access to literature.”
He’s serious about his reference to the Victorian era. He believes libraries “have been around too long” and are “no longer relevant.” Rather than spending money on libraries, he thinks taxpayers should buy each child an e-book reader. Then kids can read the abundance of available free e-books.
Evidently Deary hasn’t looked at what’s available for free. The greatest number of those books have expired copyrights. In Britain, the copyright period is the author’s life plus 70 years. So, under his approach it would be at least 70 years before kids could chance read his books — unless they or their parents are forced to buy them.
Deary ignores the fact that even in the 21st Century there are people who still need libraries to access literature and other necessary resources. Their money goes for things like clothing, shelter and food without a lot of disposable income for computers, tablets or e-books for children. But some things are more important to Deary. “Authors, book-sellers and publishers need to eat and they don’t expect to go to a food library and eat for free,” Deary he says.
Hopefully readers in Britain, the U.S. and other countries where Deary’s books are sold will take him at his word and wait until his copyrights have expired before reading or buying them.
In the library everyone was rich.
Naomi Shibab Nye, Never in a Hurry
Bulletin Board
- The South Dakota Humanities council and Siouxland Libraries were selected for Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. Developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association, the program seeks to introduce the American public to the people, places, history, faith and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world. A list of the books and program themes is available online.
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
Blog Headline of the Week
Blog Line of the Week
Batshit Craziness of the Week
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy; it’s that I just don’t care.
Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), Office Space
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- The magical land of NRAnia (“In this land, guns do not kill people. People kill people. Guns are suspiciously present at a number of these incidents, but their friends swear that they were not involved. They just have bad timing[.]”)
Batshit Craziness of the Week
- A Tennessee man took his bulldog to a shelter to be euthanized because he concluded the dog was gay.
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
- In case you were wondering, calling your doctor “a real tool” isn’t defamatory, at least in Minnesota.
- A person has to have their priorities in life, even at a young age.
I’ve come to believe cable news is slowly killing us, giving us intellectual emphysema, cancer of the mind.
Kurt Andersen, True Believers
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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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