Just the other day someone asked me, “why a blog about books?” I had a smart answer ready about the blogger set-up screen and form-anxiety. It was a quick answer and somewhat witty but it wasn’t entirely true. The real answer is somewhat more confused and along the lines of another question, “What else besides a blog about books?”
A wise man once wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun. Everything is in vain.” That pretty much sums up life: you’re going to die. Death wins. Of course, Socrates-be-damned, I read that in a book. In a world full of lonely people trying to run backwards away from the one end they all have in common, it’s hard to beat writing, for the most romantic and exciting of all our vain endeavors (there is that other thing we do that works too, though). Books, you punch Death square in the teeth.
I’ve been somewhat amazed by the connectedness and sense of intellectual community that comes with reading my entire life. Some people read to be taken away somewhere else. Some read to be other people. Me, I read to feel larger, to remember things, people and places I haven’t had a chance to forget. Things, people and places – ideas – that really shouldn’t be forgotten, that really shouldn’t die.
Even an entertainment, even the purest drivel and doggerel or latest “graphic novel” puts a leg up over the void. It’s amazing.
I’m going to keep blogging about books and reading and somewhat amusing bookish things. And I’m going to keep on being a wise-ass about it. I hope you don’t mind. It’s better than sounding somewhat crazy.
Anyone else have crazy, half-baked notions about reading? You all know I’d love to hear them. Let ’em fly.
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