Maybe next year will be the year that I finally keep a book diary
I don't read nearly as much as I once did, but I still read quite a bit, especially during the periods of time when I'm not in school, which I anticipate having a lot more of now that I'm, you know, done with school and all. I have repeatedly tried to keep track of the books that I read, either in list form, or in post form, or in brief review form, but I'm incredibly bad at it. I'm also beginning to discover that I'm really bad at actually remembering the books that I read for any length of time after having read them. This is particularly interesting to me because my memory is generally quite good, but I do feel that I have some significant gaps in long-term memory associated with visual learning. Sometimes this is even an issue for short term memory as well.
I'm sure that I'm not the only voracious reader who can remember a time when they picked up a novel at a garage sale or thrift store by an author they liked or were at least familiar with, only to discover a few pages/chapters in that it was a book they'd read before. But I've had this startling realization more than halfway through a book. That simply cannot be normal.
I'm sitting in my living room right now, surrounded by several hundred books, (some people decorate, we shelve) many of which I've read. I'd be hard pressed to give you a brief plot synopsis of any of them, excepting the one that I just finished 20 minutes ago. A few months ago I read the entire Twilight series in a week because I found a couple at Goodwill for very little money, and I know people whose intellect I respect who enjoyed the books. Plus I like vampire stories, always have, I'm pretty sure it's a defect in my wiring, but I'm trying not to be ashamed. I absolutely devoured those books, but I can barely recall them at this point. The bits I do feel confident about I'm pretty sure I'd already learned through cultural osmosis prior to reading the books.
Even the books that I really loved, the ones that felt life-changing when I read them, the ones that I practically forced the people in my life that I care about to read, I have a hard time recalling in detail. I'm thinking Little Brother, American Gods, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Prince - we're talking about books that came to me at a time when I was receptive to their message, and made me look at the world a little differently, books that made me laugh, cry, and really think about who I was and who I wanted to be. This is what I took away from each, in chronological order, starting with the most recent:
Little Brother: We're watching our freedom crumble around us and we don't really care until it happens to us. It's crazy what we think is acceptable to let the government get up to these days. Those who would sacrifice freedom for security... you get the gist. Also, hacking is kinda neat. I sort of wish I'd gotten into that back when I was still young enough to potentially be relevant. That Doctorow guy is really good at taking the current political situation, turning it ever so slightly sideways, and making me nearly pee my pants. As far as plot goes, there was a terrorist attack and the TSA took over in a really chilling sort of way. The main character was a teenager, there was a love interest, never trust anyone over 30, the TSA sucks. That's pretty much what I've got.
American Gods: Americans are really obsessed with acquiring material goods. We should maybe think about that shit. Also - gods have power that is relational to the amount of worship bestowed upon them. That Gaiman guy sure does know how to turn a premise into a rocking novel. Plot: Some old gods want their power back. They enlist a guy to help them. All sorts of impossible things happen.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Sex is good. Love is good. Science fiction is probably a good medium in which to explore the ways in which we try to pervert good things. Also - dude, Heinlein had some issues, am I right? Plot: Something in space? With lots of sex! With multiple people! Do you grok it?
The Prince: The ends justify the means. Oh wait, sometimes they don't! Right? Plot: I really have no idea anymore. I'm gonna guess that a royal type (prince makes sense, given the title) decides that he must do something horrible in order to serve a greater good. Am I close?
So - I read The Prince when I was 12 or 13, Stranger when I was 16 or 17, (and again around 20) Gods at 22 and 24, and Brother at 28 or 29. It certainly makes a degree of sense that my recollection of the particular work gets dimmer as more time passes. But even with the book that I read just a couple of years ago (I'm 31 now, for those who don't make a habit of memorizing the ages of others) I don't actually recall much of the plot. And this was an important book to me. Is an important book to me, actually. So what's up with that?
One thing that strikes me, looking over my list and recollections, is that I seem to have taken an overall feeling out of each of these books, even if the details escape me. It may be that they rank among my purported favorites, not because of stellar writing or impeccable plot lines, but because they happened to say something I wanted/needed to hear at a time and place when I was able to incorporate that message successfully. Now, I'm happy to defend the writing styles of Gaiman, Doctorow, and yes, even Heinlein*, I do actually believe that all 3 are good authors, including and apart from the titles mentioned above. I'm not sure I can say the same for Machiavelli, but I don't think any of his other works are available via mass-market paperback, so I'm unlikely to find out any time soon.
I guess I don't really have a point, I just think it's all a little interesting, and hope to do a better job of at least keeping track of which books I've read. For the record, I just finished Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow. It was no Little Brother, but was a lovely romp, in any event. I think it could conceivably be just as important as Little Brother if copyright law were to go the way it went in the book. I think it's equally important to recognize just how different a legal and social landscape you get with the passage of just a couple of laws that may seem insignificant to most folks.
*I recognize and accept that there is an entire generation of people (my generation, as a matter of fact) who, if they think of him at all, tend to think Heinlein is a hack. I think that he had things to say, and he said them in a way that was accessible to people who might have shunned his messages in any other medium. I also think that he was, in his time, a feminist of sorts. Looking at his work through a modern lens diminishes this aspect quite a lot, if not entirely. I haven't read any of his novels in ages, but I'm still somehow enamored of him and his work.
I'm sure that I'm not the only voracious reader who can remember a time when they picked up a novel at a garage sale or thrift store by an author they liked or were at least familiar with, only to discover a few pages/chapters in that it was a book they'd read before. But I've had this startling realization more than halfway through a book. That simply cannot be normal.
I'm sitting in my living room right now, surrounded by several hundred books, (some people decorate, we shelve) many of which I've read. I'd be hard pressed to give you a brief plot synopsis of any of them, excepting the one that I just finished 20 minutes ago. A few months ago I read the entire Twilight series in a week because I found a couple at Goodwill for very little money, and I know people whose intellect I respect who enjoyed the books. Plus I like vampire stories, always have, I'm pretty sure it's a defect in my wiring, but I'm trying not to be ashamed. I absolutely devoured those books, but I can barely recall them at this point. The bits I do feel confident about I'm pretty sure I'd already learned through cultural osmosis prior to reading the books.
Even the books that I really loved, the ones that felt life-changing when I read them, the ones that I practically forced the people in my life that I care about to read, I have a hard time recalling in detail. I'm thinking Little Brother, American Gods, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Prince - we're talking about books that came to me at a time when I was receptive to their message, and made me look at the world a little differently, books that made me laugh, cry, and really think about who I was and who I wanted to be. This is what I took away from each, in chronological order, starting with the most recent:
Little Brother: We're watching our freedom crumble around us and we don't really care until it happens to us. It's crazy what we think is acceptable to let the government get up to these days. Those who would sacrifice freedom for security... you get the gist. Also, hacking is kinda neat. I sort of wish I'd gotten into that back when I was still young enough to potentially be relevant. That Doctorow guy is really good at taking the current political situation, turning it ever so slightly sideways, and making me nearly pee my pants. As far as plot goes, there was a terrorist attack and the TSA took over in a really chilling sort of way. The main character was a teenager, there was a love interest, never trust anyone over 30, the TSA sucks. That's pretty much what I've got.
American Gods: Americans are really obsessed with acquiring material goods. We should maybe think about that shit. Also - gods have power that is relational to the amount of worship bestowed upon them. That Gaiman guy sure does know how to turn a premise into a rocking novel. Plot: Some old gods want their power back. They enlist a guy to help them. All sorts of impossible things happen.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Sex is good. Love is good. Science fiction is probably a good medium in which to explore the ways in which we try to pervert good things. Also - dude, Heinlein had some issues, am I right? Plot: Something in space? With lots of sex! With multiple people! Do you grok it?
The Prince: The ends justify the means. Oh wait, sometimes they don't! Right? Plot: I really have no idea anymore. I'm gonna guess that a royal type (prince makes sense, given the title) decides that he must do something horrible in order to serve a greater good. Am I close?
So - I read The Prince when I was 12 or 13, Stranger when I was 16 or 17, (and again around 20) Gods at 22 and 24, and Brother at 28 or 29. It certainly makes a degree of sense that my recollection of the particular work gets dimmer as more time passes. But even with the book that I read just a couple of years ago (I'm 31 now, for those who don't make a habit of memorizing the ages of others) I don't actually recall much of the plot. And this was an important book to me. Is an important book to me, actually. So what's up with that?
One thing that strikes me, looking over my list and recollections, is that I seem to have taken an overall feeling out of each of these books, even if the details escape me. It may be that they rank among my purported favorites, not because of stellar writing or impeccable plot lines, but because they happened to say something I wanted/needed to hear at a time and place when I was able to incorporate that message successfully. Now, I'm happy to defend the writing styles of Gaiman, Doctorow, and yes, even Heinlein*, I do actually believe that all 3 are good authors, including and apart from the titles mentioned above. I'm not sure I can say the same for Machiavelli, but I don't think any of his other works are available via mass-market paperback, so I'm unlikely to find out any time soon.
I guess I don't really have a point, I just think it's all a little interesting, and hope to do a better job of at least keeping track of which books I've read. For the record, I just finished Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow. It was no Little Brother, but was a lovely romp, in any event. I think it could conceivably be just as important as Little Brother if copyright law were to go the way it went in the book. I think it's equally important to recognize just how different a legal and social landscape you get with the passage of just a couple of laws that may seem insignificant to most folks.
*I recognize and accept that there is an entire generation of people (my generation, as a matter of fact) who, if they think of him at all, tend to think Heinlein is a hack. I think that he had things to say, and he said them in a way that was accessible to people who might have shunned his messages in any other medium. I also think that he was, in his time, a feminist of sorts. Looking at his work through a modern lens diminishes this aspect quite a lot, if not entirely. I haven't read any of his novels in ages, but I'm still somehow enamored of him and his work.