As you might have guessed, a large part of my internet travels are dedicated to essentially validating myself as a lover of books and literature; storing up retorts to people who think it passé, self-indulgent, or uninformative to read with the idea of broadening oneself (and, incidentally, becoming a better writer—but still.); and perhaps finding solace in the company of even loonier bookies.
Unsurprisingly, the internet provides when asked.
Leave it to Kurt Vonnegut to display the clarity of expression—in this case, of quite important social ideas—enabled by the mastery of language. In his 1973 letter, he puts to shame the Drake School Board for banning his books on the grounds of obscenity, evilness, or filth, exposing the very lack of nuanced thinking in the administrators that literature is supposed to cultivate, and which would have saved his books from what he called “the now famous furnace of your school.” He provides a bold reminder that to be un-American is to be “ignorant and harsh” rather than un-profane and unquestioning.
I found further reassurance in the form of the following Atlantic article, which contends that the story of the ailing, shriveling publishing industry—which we’ve all been following—is a myth. Or rather, that the industry’s been changing beyond recognition to some traditionalists, but been by no means dying. It might very well be that the advent of e-readers incorporates the act of reading into the ever-digitizing lives of those who don’t sniff books at the library, and may improve sales of both paper and electronic books. What the publishing companies are lamenting, it seems, is their reliance on Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple—the new power brokers in publishing.
This article is a short reiteration of the above. The appearance of both articles around the same time suggests to me that we’re reaching a threshold in the e-book phenomenon where its real effect is becoming clearer.
And lastly, here’s a man who has read more books than I ever will, and who loves and hates and defends books more fiercely than I ever could. This is a biography of a man’s life as a reader, entitled “My 6,128 Favorite Books,” which I found particularly refreshing for hazarding some unpopular opinions that I’ve held for awhile. Things like, “Don’t saddle me with a book as a gift,” “Speed-reading is utterly pointless,” “Sharing the same ethnic heritage as an author does not imply any obligation to read their book,” and finally, apropos of his distaste for e-books: “the world is changing, but I am not changing with it.”
That’s our October links roundup for you. As always, we’ll share the fruits of another month’s worth of compulsive bookishness one month from now.