Books, books, books.
I love a good book. I enjoy reading. I'm a pastor of a church within a faith very much enthralled with one particular book. Books are great.
There are just too many of them, and so little time.
Maybe you've had this experience: you read a great book; the lights come on inside; it's like you're seeing things as they really are for the first time; understanding has bloomed within you and you'll never be the same. You're in love.
But do you read it again? Probably not. The book goes back on the shelf, or back to the library, and you move on. You find a new, great book. Oprah recommended it. Or the Amazon.com computer says you'll love it. It has a sleek, glossy dust jacket and that new book smell. Ooh-la-la.
And so you pick up a copy, and you read it, and it is also very good. You savor it. And it goes back on the shelf. And so forth.
And pretty soon you have large bookshelves full of books. Most you've read. (Some you ordered because they sounded like books you really should read, but you haven't gotten around to it.)
Sometimes you feel like you've got to get through the book more quickly, so you just scan... gathering the general gist of things. Maybe you only read a few chapters that interest you. (Maybe you buy the Cliff's Notes!)
You tell your friends about your favorite books. And maybe they order a copy. And probably they tell you about the last great book they read, and maybe you order a copy. (And if you're a real wanker you even recommend books that you haven't even read yourself yet.)
And so you have hundreds of books. And you can remember little bits from this one and that one. You have a vague recollection of what that one up on top was about, the one with the picture of the mountains on the cover and the embossed title. But goshdarn, you can't even remember if you've read that one there in the middle, lying on its side. Did you buy that one new, or pick it up used? (Or did you borrow it from someone a year ago and just forget to return it?)
You know what I am? I'm a BOOKANIZER.
A WOMANIZER is "a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them."
A BOOKANIZER is "a person who likes many books and has short mental relationships with them."
Seriously. It's a problem. And maybe you have this problem too. You have an insatiable appetite to consume the next book on your reading list. Once that's done you toss it aside and start on the next one. Your path is scattered with books which have been tossed aside now that they're no longer "needed."
The promiscuity must stop! Now, I'm not advocating for the reading of just ONE book in your lifetime. But I want (and I believe you also want) to have meaningful mental relationships with your books. You want to remember their names and spend some time thinking about them after the reading act. You want to do more than just rip off a few interesting ideas or stories that you can amaze your friends with (or bolster your sermon, if you're a pastor like me).
At the end of your life would you rather have a dozen books that are close to your heart, that you've memorized sections from, that you've cherished and re-read over the years, and understand deeply.... or an enormous bookcase of books which elicit only the faintest memory?
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10 years ago
4 comments:
don, great post....and you need to show me how you did those cool things on the right side bar. ken wilson
I have one book I've read about four times--"Waking The Dead" by John Eldredge. A book that had a great influence on me was "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard. I only read that one once, though, and it took me about six months to plough through that difficult thing. But I go back sometimes and re-read particular passages. Overall, though, I read a book once and that's it. And I have gobs of books I haven't even got a chance to read the first time. But I don't think it's all so bad to read a book just once. Even reading it once, I learn new things that expand my horizons.
Ken, that side-bar stuff took hours of HTML programming to pull off. I had to take some classes at Washtenaw to learn Java, C++, Fortran and Linux. Very complicated and intricate. Not sure I could even explain how I did it, much less show you how. :)
i say embrace your book promiscuity! especially in regards to fiction. reading a good book transports you to a differnet place and lets you live another life for a few hours/days. just like we can't go back and relive moments in our life that impact us and we miss plenty during those real life things i think its ok to miss plenty in books! there are so many great ones and in the first reading that is when you get the most top level impact (just like in life) and so why not going around getting the primo nuggets? its like when you read a book the first time you get the rich cream off the top. the most caloric value. Sure you can go back and drink the skim milk but you have to drink a lot more to get the same nutrition as you did from the sipping of the cream. I mean if we were in a position to run out of books, to exhaust the supply of cream, then sure, spend a bunch of time with them. but we are not! i guess non-fiction not so much becuase thats more a function of our brain not being able to absorb that much at once, so i'm ok with re-reading that. but with fiction its all about the emotional impact and entering of another world and i say just go with the first little blast and move on to the next one. then we get the accumulation of all these wonderful rich experiences that are stored up and build on eachother...because each book we read informs the next like each life experience informs the next. sure sure i hear the argument, well books are different than life becuase we CAN re-read them and so we should but i say if your a bookanizer embrace your whor-ish ways and go forth guilt free :)
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