Tag: reading

If it’s good does it matter how long it is?

What’s the longest book you have read?

I actually don’t know the length of the longest book I’ve ever read. Although I keep track of each book I read I don’t track pages read. It doesn’t really seem that relevant.

There have been times when I’ll get half way through a book and I’ll look to the last pages to see how far I still have to go. This can even happen with a good book. I was just reading an autobiography which was very interesting and illuminating, but it was starting to drag a bit in the middle and I started looking at page numbers as if silently clicking them off with each turn of the page.

I wonder if this is also because of always being attached to our phones and mindlessly scrolling and consuming short form video. Has it become more difficult to sit down and read for an extended length of time. While reading I’ll find myself glancing to my phone, wondering what’s new, who’s doing what and why. Are we becoming a culture of observing, watching as others do things instead of reading and thinking.

I was at my Mom’s last week and I happened to be glancing through her bookcase absentmindedly looking for a new book to read. She had an old worn copy of War and Peace. I asked her if she had ever read it and to my surprise she said she had. My Mom reads but I never suspected she had read a lengthy novel of Russian history. My Dad I could picture him reading it and probably enjoying it. She encouraged me to take it but I declined saying I was looking for something a little more lighthearted than that. I also remarked that it seemed like a good book to read during the winter holed up in front of a fireplace as the wind whips around outside.

I’m currently reading what I would describe as a drugstore paperback. It’s an old timey murder mystery set in the 1920’s. It has that mystery noir feeling to it of backrooms, cigar smoke, treachery, double crosses, baseball and an old girlfriend who shows up unexpectedly. I’m only halfway through it but I’m betting the dame is mixed up in it somehow. I was hoping the old girlfriend might be variously described as a broad, skirt, doll or even a gal, but alas those terms haven’t been used and in that respect the book is a slight disappointment.

I once tried reading Moby Dick one summer. It was when I was in college and I figured I should read one of the classics on summer break. I have no idea how I came to choose Moby Dick besides knowing it was considered a classic and had all these existential themes of man’s journey, his perseverance and commitment. I don’t actually know if those themes are relevant to Moby Dick or not because I never even made it through one chapter. I remember reading the first couple of pages….there’s a guy named Ishmael, he wants to get on a whaling vessel and then I fell asleep. Odd I remember thinking, I never fall asleep reading especially back then when I was young and could stay up all night. A few nights later I tried again….there’s a guy who wants to be called Ishmael, he wants to get on a whaling vessel and then I fell asleep.

Obviously I never made it through Moby Dick that summer. It sat on my desk for weeks untouched after those first few attempts and finally I returned it to the library before I was charged a late fee. I do remember thinking thank god I didn’t buy the damned thing.

Perhaps I’ll attempt to read Moby Dick again or War and Peace or some other great Russian novel. I do love the movie Dr. Zhivago so the book must also be good. Dr. Zhivago is another book that seems appropriate to read during the darkest, coldest months of the year.

Until then I’ll continue with my mystery noir wondering how the broad, the dame, the skirt is going to double cross the main character. Perhaps that’s what Moby Dick is really missing, a skirt that comes back to torment Ishmael or maybe a broad is the real reason Captain Ahab chases the whale….. nothing beats a broad who’s been scorned and has trust issues.

Peace and Love,

John

So Many to Read, So Little Time

Daily writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
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For the last few years I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read. Each year I try to read more than the previous year. This past year I read 17 books….. I believe that’s the most I’ve read in a year but I know it pales in comparison to some people, my wife is a voracious reader who can easily read 1 or even 2 books a week.

I like to to keep track of what I’ve read to see if I’m perhaps reading too much of a certain author or genre. I enjoy reading John Grisham books and each year I seem to read 1 or 2. Either he comes out with a new one or I find a title I haven’t read at my local library. I recently found one at the library that I hadn’t read. The story revolved around the theft of the F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from the Princeton library. It got me thinking that I never read any other works by Fitzgerald except Gatsby. It took me multiple readings of Gatsby to truly appreciate it. I was always hung up on the idea that it was just a story of the rich and privileged doing awful things and not being held accountable. Even though Gatsby is hung up on his high school crush it’s still a story of love and loss. I read that Gatsby wasn’t even a big success when it was written and Fitzgerald was bankrupt and so desperate for money and recognition that he was writing screen plays in Hollywood when he died. I think I’ll read more Fitzgerald this year to see if his other story’s are as good as Gatsby.

I’ve always been fascinated with Hemingway. He himself cultivated an image of a man who could drink more, write better, out fight and out womanize anyone else. As with a lot of mythology some of this is true and some of it is pure fiction, but the man could write. Not everything he wrote stands the test of time and some of his subjects are just plain puzzling nowadays, his fascination with bullfighting and traveling around Europe as part of “the lost generation” seems odd. His personal life may have been as tragic as the characters in his books but some of those books are pure genius. The subjects of love, loss and death permeate his great works and I think I’ll continue to read as much of his work as I can.

Being a sports fan I could easily spend a whole year reading nothing but sports books especially baseball. I think of all the sports, baseball is the sport that has the most books about it, perhaps it’s the history and tradition of the game or maybe just the simple pace and day to day nature of it but I do enjoy a baseball book during the long, dark, cold winter months. Reading a baseball book in the winter gives me something to look forward to as the seasons eventually change.

I read somewhere that the best story’s are about baseball, running and horses. Maybe it’s the solitary nature of running, the lyrical day to day grind of baseball and the simple beauty of a horse but I have read great books about all 3 of those subjects. But there are great story’s everywhere…..go find a book and read it

Peace and Love,

John