Okay, I knew I was going to do these on the Facebook page, but I haven’t done that, and I’m under a great deal of time pressure right now — I had to get a replacement phone yesterday, and in 12 days begin my first class intended to be a completely online class. So…yeah. Let’s jump in to the seventeen books I’ve read thus far this year.
Read MoreI’ve been thinking for a while that society is a machine for transforming the raw material of time into history. A way to process the steady drip of seconds and the slow slosh of the seasons into a record of things that have happened. Before we had history, we had legend and myth, but with the advent of written records we had history. Even as those written records have declined in importance and acknowledgment, they are still there, still produced by those who see the benefit of knowing what went on before.
Read MoreThe system, which supposedly generates prosperity for everyone to an unprecedented degree, doesn’t. We’re told that it works, we’re told that doing all of these things should help, and we internalize this narrative. It becomes a subconscious mantra, the way that an Orthodox monk is encouraged to say the Jesus Prayer in time with his heartbeat. You see: we’ve been sold a fantasy that does not map on to reality. Human beings are smart enough that you don’t have to actually give us the reward. You just have to convince us that the reward is there.
Read MoreI haven’t been reading as much this year, or at least not as many books. I think I’m still reading with the same frequency, but this year I decided to dial back my Goodreads challenge number, because I wanted to read some denser, odder stuff. I found that in trying to read many books (last year I hit 45, which I think is pretty good considering I periodically do other stuff), I was privileging briefer ones. That’s no bad thing — efficient style is nothing to be sneezed at, and frankly I think we should all be reading more poetry — but I had been eyeballing a few longer and more intense pieces for quite some time.
Read MoreAlex is hard at work on the next episode — as Episode 8 is to Edgar, so Episode 9 is to me, so I’m very excited for it. Of course, we’re admittedly a bit behind: it’s inevitable. Alex works tech support, I’m an Adjunct, Charlie has a job at a museum. We’re not always able to put the time towards our creative endeavors that we would like.
One thing, however, that we can manage, is to read: we’re all avid readers, and we try to stay abreast of what’s going on with the written word. Here are some highlights from what I’ve read this Spring.
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