WHEN BOOK CLUBS ARE JUST TOO MUCH TROUBLE`
The Rake points to a troubling article:
The Rake sums up: "If you want to drink, scrapbook, and talk about who Lindsay Lohan is fucking, carry on & wallow away. Just don't insult the rest of us--and Logos itself--with this who-can-find-the-time? horseshit. And this means you, too, gentlemen. We could have a nation full of Proust readers, but instead you've made your choice: jerking off and watching NASCAR."
I agree that the, "I can't find the time," excuse is rather lame; if you don't have time to read, how the hell do you have time to make dioramas?
I think the real reason that many book clubs don't actually read the books they've picked out is because they find them boring; the plea to insufficient free time is just a blind. Let's face it: if you're not a well-respected critic of literature (and, sometimes, even if you are), claiming that a book is dull leaves you open to a whole host of personally insulting rebuttals. You're too stupid to understand it; you're a philistine; you have no attention span; you have the brain of a humming-bird; you're illiterate; you're intellectually lazy; you're B. R. Meyers; and, etc.
Why allow yourself to be subjected to such ridicule? When a reporter from the Denver Post comes snooping around, isn't it just easier for all concerned to say, "Gosh, I was totally going to read A Tale of Two Cities, but I'm just so damn busy, you know?" Of course you are, dude. We understand.
Incidentally, I personally morn the passing of drinking clubs. Am I the only one sick of either drinking with strangers or drinking alone? The bulk liquor discounts don't seem like a bad idea, either.
A successful local author met me for coffee a few years ago. We were talking about book clubs, women's book clubs to be exact, when she leaned toward me and said in a low voice, "Let me let you in on a dirty little secret. They don't read the books."
A group of eight Denver women has licked that problem. They belong to The Magazine Club.
Once a month, they meet in a restaurant. Over drinks, each member brings a magazine she has read and talks about an article in it. "After that we cut out pictures from the magazines and make a diorama," says member Christina Brickley.
[...]
Magazine choices include everything from People to Vanity Fair to the New Yorker. "Always the New Yorker," says Brickley. "The cartoons make excellent wallpaper for the dioramas."
They are career women and moms - which limits their book-reading opportunities. "Those darn books," jokes Brickley. "We all have enough time to read an article. And we get to catch up and have dinner and take turns paying the bill."
The Rake sums up: "If you want to drink, scrapbook, and talk about who Lindsay Lohan is fucking, carry on & wallow away. Just don't insult the rest of us--and Logos itself--with this who-can-find-the-time? horseshit. And this means you, too, gentlemen. We could have a nation full of Proust readers, but instead you've made your choice: jerking off and watching NASCAR."
I agree that the, "I can't find the time," excuse is rather lame; if you don't have time to read, how the hell do you have time to make dioramas?
I think the real reason that many book clubs don't actually read the books they've picked out is because they find them boring; the plea to insufficient free time is just a blind. Let's face it: if you're not a well-respected critic of literature (and, sometimes, even if you are), claiming that a book is dull leaves you open to a whole host of personally insulting rebuttals. You're too stupid to understand it; you're a philistine; you have no attention span; you have the brain of a humming-bird; you're illiterate; you're intellectually lazy; you're B. R. Meyers; and, etc.
Why allow yourself to be subjected to such ridicule? When a reporter from the Denver Post comes snooping around, isn't it just easier for all concerned to say, "Gosh, I was totally going to read A Tale of Two Cities, but I'm just so damn busy, you know?" Of course you are, dude. We understand.
Incidentally, I personally morn the passing of drinking clubs. Am I the only one sick of either drinking with strangers or drinking alone? The bulk liquor discounts don't seem like a bad idea, either.
