Day Two Hundred and Seventy Two
I read a lot of books. I read them pretty fast; about 1/2 a book a day. I read them not just as recreation but to learn and understand more. Fortunately reading to learn is not a matter of volume. You can linger over a book for months and ferret out every little detail and nuance and understand it thoroughly. This is a healthy practice for certain books and for certain conditions of life. This year I am reading for an overview of a large quantity of literature. I do have a pretty high retention rate but at this pace I can only remember a certain level of detail from day to day. One huge advantage of my current lifestyle – taking care of little ones all day – is that I can spend the time I’m taking care of them to refer to my notes and think about what I’ve read. This is not peaceful meditation but it is meditation. Caring for small children taxes physical energy and one’s virtue but doesn’t do much for the intellect.
Speaking of taxing one’s energy…I fell asleep while reading last night…at 8:30! I guess I was pretty tired but I feel half-ashamed, that was a good hour-and-a-half I could have been reading or blogging. Alex got up at 6:30 this morning so I sat on the floor of his room and cuddled with him while I finished Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. I’ve often heard this book praised (growing up in circles that revered the Founding Fathers as the greater saints) but I found it dull. As I was reading I thought that some of his arguments were pretty thin and some of them little more than bald assertions but given his place in history, I’ll defer until if and when I have the inclination to study out the history of commerce and democracy a bit more.
56 more books to read…
October 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am
Darn that sleep! Always creeping up and interrupting your reading time