(no subject)

[jfb]

Via Rodcorp again, two essays by Geoff Dyer for LA Weekly: One on Memento and forgetting, and one on a depressingly familiar condition he calls "reader's block". (He offers a happy ending, but I remain unconvinced.)

Comments

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I'm actually reading more this year (two books a month, not including comics and Go books), and that's due to my book club and my stubborn refusal to not read the books I choose during that time, so I'm alternating. Trouble is, I can't read that fast (or, I just don't dedicate enough time per day), so I end up cramming at the end of the month. Which reminds me, I should write a journal entry for the last book club. But I digress.

I got a couple of paragraphs into that article, then started skimming, then just cam back here and started chatting. (Not to mention that I interrupted my own freaking post to check to see if anything new had popped up. And that, since, that article popped up an ad, I got stuck finishing an article I had in another window.) Yes. Interrupt-driven, I am.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I've hardly read any books in the past couple years, mostly because of the thing he describes about how reading feels too much like work, and if I felt like working I'd be working, so I watch TV because it's more obviously relaxation. But also, I think it's somewhat narrow to define "reading" as "reading books"—I'm surrounded by text all day every day. Most websites are more like magazines than books, and code and code comments are more like cookbooks or instruction manuals, but it's still reading.

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think about that from time to time -- I probably read more now than every before in my life, with this barrage of websites and feeds and whatnot I'm exposed to. It would be interesting to measure that somehow and compare it to books.