Thursday, April 9, 2009

Book 'im, Stevo.


One of the foremost contradictions in my life has arisen from my love of reading and my distaste for clutter.

But finally, after 46 years of struggling with the question of where to store all my books (yes, I'm dating from the copy of Hop on Pop I treasured at age two), I thought I finally had this whole bookshelf thing figured out.

Ever since I downloaded the Stanza reader on my iPhone, I've felt liberated.

I was even inspired to embark on a bit of a Charles Dickens bender, and easily plowed through David Copperfield, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby and A Tale of Two Cities on a screen measuring 2" by 3".

With the entire works of Shakespeare, Dickens and H.G. Wells -- and more to come -- in my pocket, I can now, in good conscience, pare from my bookshelves every English language classic in the public domain.

But as the great god Biblios would have it, I just learned that my journalistic duties will now include that of book critic. My opening task was to confront a pile of about 400 books, the spring 2009 output of most of the U.S. publishing industry -- damn them to hell.

And a dozen or so new volumes now arrive my mailbox every day.

Biblios obviously has a sense of humor.

1 comment:

Professor Tom said...

Hi! Saw you here on reason.com and thought I'd have a look at your site. I like what I see so I added your blog to my newsreader.

In direct answer to your question, I posted my own review of State of Play here and would appreciate the feedback.

You can catch my blog either at schpydurx.livejournal.com or at professortom.xanga.com.

Thanks for your time.