This isn’t a new year’s resolution but, this year, I intend to read 52 books. I talk about it a bit on this week’s podcast, which will be coming out today. For now, though, I want to try and explain why I’ve decided to do this:
I’m have a feeling I’m becoming stupid.
Oh wow, that was easy.
What I really mean to say is, I think I’m spending too much time on the web and around its ideas. Subscribing to 300+ RSS feeds may be killing me. I love blogs, and I love podcasts, but in 2007 I want to experience real life again.
This doesn’t mean I’ll stop producing content. Quite the contrary, in fact. More than likely, I’ll produce more— there’ll just be less obsessive, consistent parsing of content. I suspect that checking my feeds a mere twice a day will not kill me, and will leave me time for much richer endeavours.
This week I’ll be reading Grimus, the first book by Salman Rushdie. Rushdie would later have a fatwa issued upon him by Ruhollah Khomeini because of his work, The Satanic Verses, the novel that made him famous. (I chose Grimus because it was shorter.)
I tried to pick something that was outside my normal sphere; all year I’ve been reading business and self-development books, while my understanding of culture and art has remained the same– possibly even shrunk. I don’t want to neglect this any further, so this is one way of dealing with the problem.
That said, I intend to blog about every book I read as I begin it. Hopefully you’ll like, or be interested by, my choices. If you are (or if you disagree with them), let me know.
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