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Dec. 1st, 2009 01:18 pmI'm very tired of top ten, top 100, top 322, top 5492.4 lists of books. Four have appeared in my in-tray in the last hour. To a list, they represent the books the creators know from their normal work and to a creator, that knowledge is limited. None of them expand my wish to read or my understanding of books I must read urgently. None of them persuade me that the Christmas shopping frenzy is something I should share.
Lists of books are too common these days. Instead of having trouble discovering the opinions of others and expanding our knowledge of what's out there, our spaces are littered with suggestions.
I think I'll be very old-fashioned for the next two months. I shall listen to the opinions of friends and I shall read reviews. From this, I can make my own lists. I shan't share them, though: it would just add to the babble. If there's someone out there who wants to read what I read the very day I read it, I might refer them to a psychologist.
There is something I can do to share my taste in books. I can point to Goodreads and the many opinions evinced by many readers (one of whom is me).
Also, I can remind friends who live comfortably close or who are visiting Canberra that my library is a lending library. You can browse and say "Gillian, what do you think about this?" We can sit down over coffee and decide that Paul Park is good summer reading and that novels about plague rarely have the same level of cheer as anything by Kinsella, that Ruth Park has lovely metaphors (a bit like a pianist with graceful hands - not all writers can do metpahors with style and not all pianists have elegant fingers) and that Crowley is always mesmerising and is best read slowly.
I have enough coffee for any number of chats. No milk till tomorrow, though.
Now I'm going to spend an hour tackling my next goal - I want to have the worst of those teetering piles read and away by the holiday period, so that I can do much while the rest of Australia takes time out. After that, I will have run out of time out myself.
It's an hour reading then work til midnight.
Lists of books are too common these days. Instead of having trouble discovering the opinions of others and expanding our knowledge of what's out there, our spaces are littered with suggestions.
I think I'll be very old-fashioned for the next two months. I shall listen to the opinions of friends and I shall read reviews. From this, I can make my own lists. I shan't share them, though: it would just add to the babble. If there's someone out there who wants to read what I read the very day I read it, I might refer them to a psychologist.
There is something I can do to share my taste in books. I can point to Goodreads and the many opinions evinced by many readers (one of whom is me).
Also, I can remind friends who live comfortably close or who are visiting Canberra that my library is a lending library. You can browse and say "Gillian, what do you think about this?" We can sit down over coffee and decide that Paul Park is good summer reading and that novels about plague rarely have the same level of cheer as anything by Kinsella, that Ruth Park has lovely metaphors (a bit like a pianist with graceful hands - not all writers can do metpahors with style and not all pianists have elegant fingers) and that Crowley is always mesmerising and is best read slowly.
I have enough coffee for any number of chats. No milk till tomorrow, though.
Now I'm going to spend an hour tackling my next goal - I want to have the worst of those teetering piles read and away by the holiday period, so that I can do much while the rest of Australia takes time out. After that, I will have run out of time out myself.
It's an hour reading then work til midnight.