Pearl Lorentzen
The last two weeks Joe McWilliams and Chris Clegg talked about reading. Reading these articles brought to mind a movement within academia to move away from the idea of the ‘cannon’ or must-read books to be part of the literate elite.
I think in a round-a-bout way all three of us are saying the same thing. Books are important and read whatever you want.
I saw a meme recently which said something along the lines that “libraries have something to offend everyone.”
It is because a library has books and magazines on a wide range of subjects and from a diverse perspective. Therefore, there are books that will comfort people, challenge them, and anger them. The same book may have the opposite effect on different people.
Joe and Chris wrote about their very different taste in books. Now it’s my turn!
To start with, I must confess that I am a sporadic reader. Sometimes I read a book a week and at other times I read almost nothing. However, I have learned that this is OK.
When it comes to reading taste, I fall somewhere in between Joe and Chris. I have read a few classics. Jane Austen is one of my favourite authors, but other than A Christmas Carol (and a short story attached at the end of the version I read), I have avoided Dickens and many other classic authors. I read The Great Gatsby, but didn’t enjoy it.
I also am not a huge fan of comics. When I was a kid, that was the only part of the newspaper I read. I enjoy Calvin and Hobbes, but haven’t picked up one in years.
I enjoy superhero movies, but have never gotten into comics. I tried manga, when I was studying Japanese, but found it hard to know which panel to read next. This isn’t a problem with comic strips, such as Calvin and Hobbes, but it is part of graphic novels and comic books. I don’t know how to read it and learning the new process is more stressful than relaxing.
Over the years, my taste in books has changed. When I was younger, I read a lot of westerns and Christian historic fiction. I have barely touched either in recent years.
I am currently a third to halfway through two books and have been for about a month. One of the books is Blindness by José Saramago.I haven’t read him since my first year of college when I read Death with Interruptions. I didn’t get it, but enjoyed that I could figure out who was speaking.
Saramago pretty much breaks all of the rules around dialogue. He doesn’t use quotation marks, say who said what, or separate dialogue from action. I find it fascinating. Being older, I’m enjoying Blindness more than I did the other one.
Another change in my reading habits is I’ve started to read non-fiction. These can be anything from neurolinguistics to Salt: A World History (a library book on myself at the moment). I especially enjoy books about history or geography.
Over the years, I have learned to embrace my eclectic taste in books and haphazard approach to reading. I am also fascinated to hear what other people are reading. At the monthly book club at the Slave Lake Library we don’t read a specific book. Instead, we choose themes and then choose if we’ll bother following them. It’s a great opportunity to talk about books. No judgment, just bibliophiles (book lovers) getting together.