Why I Read

I read to be entertained not necessarily enlightened but if along the way the latter happens then great for me! I do like reading the classics but most turn out to be disappointing works of snobbish blather. Two classics that turned out to be major disappointments for me were The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms; The Heart of Darkness, while better than the other two left me wondering why Marlow didn’t just kill himself. On the other hand, a good Orwell novel, short story, or essay is always great – we do, after all live in a 1984-esk world.

Maybe my statement that I don’t read to be enlightened is a little harsh. It is not that I don’t want to gain understanding of the world around me but I already live in that real world so that reading books that focus on the pain and suffering or torment of others is not quite what I am looking for when I read. I read to escape into another world. It is the same for movies, I would much rather watch a good action flick rather than a movie focused on a person suffering from cancer. Not that I am unsympathetic to that person’s suffering but I have experienced that in real life already; it cannot get more poignant than that.

I like mostly to read history and good biographies, but that is nonfiction. When it comes to fiction I enjoy science fiction and books a little on the edge between possibility and impossibility. I enjoy the books by Dan Brown; the slight reinterpretation of history. In that category are the books of one of my favorite authors Steve Berry, whose main character Cotton Malone chases around the world staving off cataclysmic disaster.

I remember the first book that really drew me in, The Count of Monte Cristo. It took me two months to read – I am a slow reader, but took me to a world of adventure that I still remember. I have always wanted to go back and read the book but there are so many other books that need reading. I read that book in high school. Then I discovered science fiction and that became my joy. I mostly liked reading short stories because it meant that I didn’t have to commit to a long drawn out story that I might not finish. I was for most of my life a lazy reader. I read a lot of Asimov and Heinlein in college and whenever I actually took the time to read the books assigned to me in my literature classes I was always impressed how much I enjoyed reading them.

Somehow I managed to get through most of my English/reading classes in high school and college without ever reading all of the assigned material. This of course was before the age of computers and Google, so I couldn’t just go online and download the relevant information and generate an essay or pass a test. So, I didn’t have to do some reading. Sometime in the 90’s I finally started reading in earnest; at that time only history and biographies. I would put together lists of 10 or 12 books that I wanted to read and then just start reading. It might take me most of a year to get through the list but I do it and then when that list was complete I would make another and read that list also. Sometime in 2008, as a gift I was given my first Kindle reader, which by the way I still have. At that time the Steve Berry novel The Charlemagne Pursuit was being advertised on the radio station I listened to as I drove back and forth to Albuquerque for work. So, that became one of the first books I downloaded and read on my Kindle. It was also the book that got me hooked on Berry’s Cotton Malone character so I download the previous 3 books in the series and read them. I also downloaded Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (on my drive back and forth to Albuquerque I listened to his other books on audio – through Audible). I read a couple of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, A Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five; I followed that up later with Breakfast of Champions. Surprisingly I didn’t read any science fiction, except the pseudo stuff of Vonnegut. I also read history and biographies.

I am not always a big fan of multi-book series because one always has to read every book to reach the end. The Cotton Malone series is nice because each book resolves itself by the end. I enjoyed the Foundation series by Asimov but never went back and read the other 3 or 4 books in the series.

I have read hundreds of books (well hundreds may be pushing it but the number read is over a hundred!) since getting that Kindle. I rarely read actual physical books. I find that the print is often too small and though I use reading glasses the lighting makes it hard to read physical books. I still have a substantial library but when I read I usually read on the Kindle.

My taste in books hasn’t really changed I still mostly read nonfiction over fiction and mostly adventure fiction books, but I like to throw in a nice novel of a different style now and then. One of things I did do was subscribe to the digital version of the New York Times Book Review and every weekend I pursue it and read the more interesting reviews and often download the novel being reviewed and read it. The NYTimes Book Reviewed has introduced me to many novels that I would normally seek out and read and as a result I feel that I am better off for the experience. I recently started reading the books of John Le Carre. The language and the writing are so refined and though a bit dry the story is so well written that one easily ignores the dryness to get to the end of the book and to the resolution.

I usually have several books going at once but after a while I begin to feel guilty about not finish this or that book so I stop reading the others and concentrate on finishing each book in turn. Often it is hard to move on to a book that I really want to read knowing that there are other books that I really wanted to read, half read and waiting to be finished. Finishing a book gives one a great sense of accomplishment, though if it is a great story or a good biography, it is hard to see the story end or read about the death of a favorite person; I always cry at the end of a biography when the death of the subject person is described. Currently I am reading Ian Kershaw’s To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949, which I discovered through the NYTimes Book Review; Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, in paperback; also in paperback, Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories (There is a whole series of these books dating from the 1930 through to the 1970s), and on my phone (Kindle for Andriod) Joseph Epstein’s Wind Sprints, Shorter Essays. I am sure that there are other books that I have on the hook that I have started and read several chapters into then put down to pick up later and maybe finish.

And though I read to be entertained I cannot help but also be enlightened. It would not be a good book if one didn’t come away feeling as though they have a better understanding of the world around them!