I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.

--Ray Bradbury

Thursday, January 10, 2008

General Laziness


I've discovered over the month of laziness that was my winter vacation that reading nonfiction is a good thing for me. I love fiction madly but often when deeply into the work of someone else I find it hard to care about or consider my own. Nonfiction gives me the means to continue exploring words and their usage while pondering the possibilities of my own imagination.


I read over the break, though not enough (never quite enough). I read Manhunt about the search for Lincoln's assassins. I read Grant and Sherman which details the friendship that came from the working relationship of U.S. Grant and William Sherman. Both books were very well done. I think I liked the first best because it was just so well written. There was a narrative style to the book that made it terribly compelling. Even though I knew some about the event and the manhunt, this book was excellent at detailing what happened when and why they happened as they did as well as showing the ramifications of the events unfolding as they did. Swanson isn't an historian but he's a damn good writer and I recommend the book highly.


I started a book on Lincoln which is good but has really bogged me down. I've been working on it for two weeks (my goal was a book a week) and only read about 100 pages. It's well written but I just can't seem to sit still long enough to make any headway. I have nearly finished a journal though, so at least if I can't get my ADHD to permit reading, I have gotten it to commit to some writing of some sort.


On the subject of blogs....what purpose does this serve? My grandmother used to say, "Fools names and fools faces are often seen in public spaces." I stop now and wonder, is that all this blogging is? Is that all we are doing with this? Does this act serve any good or is it merely the act of "publishing" one's self in a world that is losing readers of any sort? How many blogs are ignored? Never looked at by anyone by the author? Thoughts to ponder

1 comment:

anonymous said...

Hey! You are reading quite a lot. I respect your enjoyment of nonfiction. I can't really take it myself. And if I can there has to be some playing with style: Vonnegut, Eggers.

I enjoy your blog! Keep it up.

-Brian

P.S. I have had some blogs too: http://morecandor.wordpress.com and (older) http://geniusiseasy.blogspot.com/