Get Thee to a Lemony Snicket and Find a Quiet Corner!
As a devoted bookie (no, not that kind), I was horrified at recent report on national reading patterns. As I recall, this was to the general effect (of course I didn't actually read it!) that 25% of us (however that is defined) did not read a single book last year. The engineer/analyst in me might quibble here: only paper books read in first person? do audio/e-books count? Braille? etc. etc.
That is a sorry stat no matter how you package it. But there is some buzz to the effect that we are in the midst of a renaissance in reading. Here in the Pacific NW there are subjective hints of this, despite the sad dissolution of far too many small, independent booksellers in the past few years. Certainly the bookish enthusiasm of the few parents of young kids I know well (kudos to, among others, Michael, Joe and Bill, Mary Lou and Scott!) is a happy indicator.
Personally, barring unforeseen circumstances (upcoming wedding is in foreseen category), I will likely best prior record for books read in a year (record was a few years back), thanks in no small measure to books heard rather than read in the old-fashioned way.
This segue is not my best ever, I concede. But it was the book-connections in this FDL piece that drew me in. I don't even know who Megan McArdle is (and now I will have to fight mental quarantine on Atlantic).
I don’t know how many of you have been following the fortunes of Atlantic Monthly’s latest Ivy League Affirmative Action hire, Megan McArdle. She’s the blogger formerly known as Jane Galt, a Randian “Libertarian” whose musings on economic policy and the social safety net are so painfully vacuous and shallow that Paris Hilton would be ashamed to sign her name at the bottom. She makes Ana Marie Cox look like some kind of Girl Chomsky.
Once when we were in our twenties I asked my twin brother what exactly a Libertarian was. “A Republican who owns a bong,” was his highly informative response.
That explains a lot.
Most people go through an Ayn Rand phase. Generally somewhere in those dark years between A Catcher in the Rye and the onset of Still Life With Woodpecker. After Old Yeller, but before On the Road (basically, somewhere around one’s junior year of high school), many an American teen has tackled Atlas Shrugged and spent a couple of weeks spouting geysers of rhetorical dreck about self-determination and Teh Individual before some helpful older person takes them aside and explains that it’s awfully hard to enjoy your speedy new roadster when there’s no roads, which are paid for by taxes, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, that helpful older person never intervened in McArdle’s case. From her writing, it appears that she was dumped straight from her gilt-edged creche into some gold plated veal-pen of a preparatory school, from whence her parents’ money wafted her into the rarefied airs of the Ivy League, which summarily spat her into her current sinecure at the Atlantic. Presumably all without her ever scrubbing a toilet, waiting a table, or doing anything that would spoil her manicure or muss her boarding-school bob.
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Amongst the three current generations of my blood-relatives and in-laws in the local area, including numerous avid readers, Ayn Rand barely raises a flicker. I imagine aggressive third-degree would find one or two copping a plea on Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I've never gone near her, but have had recent low-grade resolve in that direction. Multiple Robbins-readings is probably the case for at least two generations (though I am a one-book man so far). Catcher in the Rye I'd guess plagued two generations at least. Old Yeller, an interesting question. Not sure I know anyone who has actually read the book. Viewing? Absolutely! And On the Road? Go on - I'd guess repeat readings by two generations. At least four by me. But maybe not the grandparents.
Read on!
That is a sorry stat no matter how you package it. But there is some buzz to the effect that we are in the midst of a renaissance in reading. Here in the Pacific NW there are subjective hints of this, despite the sad dissolution of far too many small, independent booksellers in the past few years. Certainly the bookish enthusiasm of the few parents of young kids I know well (kudos to, among others, Michael, Joe and Bill, Mary Lou and Scott!) is a happy indicator.
Personally, barring unforeseen circumstances (upcoming wedding is in foreseen category), I will likely best prior record for books read in a year (record was a few years back), thanks in no small measure to books heard rather than read in the old-fashioned way.
This segue is not my best ever, I concede. But it was the book-connections in this FDL piece that drew me in. I don't even know who Megan McArdle is (and now I will have to fight mental quarantine on Atlantic).
I don’t know how many of you have been following the fortunes of Atlantic Monthly’s latest Ivy League Affirmative Action hire, Megan McArdle. She’s the blogger formerly known as Jane Galt, a Randian “Libertarian” whose musings on economic policy and the social safety net are so painfully vacuous and shallow that Paris Hilton would be ashamed to sign her name at the bottom. She makes Ana Marie Cox look like some kind of Girl Chomsky.
Once when we were in our twenties I asked my twin brother what exactly a Libertarian was. “A Republican who owns a bong,” was his highly informative response.
That explains a lot.
Most people go through an Ayn Rand phase. Generally somewhere in those dark years between A Catcher in the Rye and the onset of Still Life With Woodpecker. After Old Yeller, but before On the Road (basically, somewhere around one’s junior year of high school), many an American teen has tackled Atlas Shrugged and spent a couple of weeks spouting geysers of rhetorical dreck about self-determination and Teh Individual before some helpful older person takes them aside and explains that it’s awfully hard to enjoy your speedy new roadster when there’s no roads, which are paid for by taxes, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, that helpful older person never intervened in McArdle’s case. From her writing, it appears that she was dumped straight from her gilt-edged creche into some gold plated veal-pen of a preparatory school, from whence her parents’ money wafted her into the rarefied airs of the Ivy League, which summarily spat her into her current sinecure at the Atlantic. Presumably all without her ever scrubbing a toilet, waiting a table, or doing anything that would spoil her manicure or muss her boarding-school bob.
-clip-
Amongst the three current generations of my blood-relatives and in-laws in the local area, including numerous avid readers, Ayn Rand barely raises a flicker. I imagine aggressive third-degree would find one or two copping a plea on Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. I've never gone near her, but have had recent low-grade resolve in that direction. Multiple Robbins-readings is probably the case for at least two generations (though I am a one-book man so far). Catcher in the Rye I'd guess plagued two generations at least. Old Yeller, an interesting question. Not sure I know anyone who has actually read the book. Viewing? Absolutely! And On the Road? Go on - I'd guess repeat readings by two generations. At least four by me. But maybe not the grandparents.
Read on!
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:50 PM
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