How Many Have You Read?I'm gearing up for another trip to New York City next month, so thoughts of all my favorite Manhattan places are beginning to fill the mind during unexpected moments. And few take a back seat to the jewel of Fifth Avenue and 42nd St., the New York Public Library, guarded by those iconic twin stone lions at either side of the front door. The immense reading room, with its intricately scalloped ceiling and its hundreds of green banker's lamps is a thing of beauty, its grandeur and vibrancy difficult to explain. Just make sure you see it sometime soon, if you haven't already. The library's website contains this page listing 25 especially memorable books from 2005. How many have you read? All I'll admit to is that I have a whole lot left to discover from that list myself.
7 Comments:
Shalom John,
Uh... umm... I'm 0 for 25.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Jeff, don't feel bad. I'm just one better. But I did set it aside as a possible reading list from which to draw a few additional possible titles. Lord knows, there's WAY to much to read.
Joan Didion. That's it.
I'm 1/25, but that one book (Never Let Me Go) was one of the finest books I've ever read, by an author (Kazuo Ishiguro) who has since steadily become one of my favorites. So...I worry not about my ratio.
I did notice you enthusing about that book, Darby, and made a mental note to read that sometime. Your reputation is riding on the outcome of that experience. Seriously, though, no one should be worried about this or any other ratio, obviously. I remember once being in a conversation with a group of pretty serious, accomplished writers. One by one, they all sheepishly admitted that, well, they really had read very little, and in some cases not one damn bit, of Shakespeare, who's supposed to be the great font from which all literature flows. We're just not steeped in classical education as we once were. So it's a given that no one should lose a second's sleep over not having read lesser stuff from a more contemporary list. At the same time, we can all just make a mid-year resolution to occasionally try.
O/25. I'm always behind the times. I just started Da Vinci Code. I figured I should read it before seeing the movie (three years after it's been in the theaters and is finally available in the library). You've outed me, I guess. I'm really not hip. That is what the kids are saying these days? See, wrong again. Oh well.
Jim, parents of small kids get a complimentary get-out-of-jail pass on all reading assignments, a policy I've just instituted. I've been there, and I know how time-starved they are. And when you combine that with being an indy contractor, with the need to generate one's own income, you've got double reason to spend your time elsewhere. But hell, there's always retirement. And even before that, your kids will get older fast, leaving you lots of additional hours. So worry not.
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