Got to thinking about what I was reading as a college student and realized that I spent my entire undergraduate career with my nose in textbooks and have no memory of reading for pleasure in my dorm room. I do remember taking mental health excursions to the Gothic styled library on campus, but recollect that I mostly glanced at newspapers in the reading gallery. Seemingly, I had no attention span beyond the column inch.
Did I read anything beyond parasitology, quantitative analysis, and immunology texts? I know I took a kiddie lit course to meet elective requirements, but draw an utter blank when I try to recall what (if any) books I read in that class. A black memory hole.
Now, I can remember when in high school asking for and receiving a pamphlet listing the 100 books anyone going to college should read -- loaded with the classics. And I faithfully plowed my way through it as much as possible my junior and senior years. But, looking back, I don't think I knew how to read then. At least, not with the matured reading skills I bring to bear at this stage of life. I read each book then as if reading a book for the first time. Now I read with an entire bibliographic history accrued over decades of a reading lifetime informing my reading of every book.
Therefore, in tonight's diary I thought I'd do two things: 1) Ask about what you as college student read, and what college students are reading in the 21st C.; 2) Talk about your reading life as the "then reader" compared to the "now reader." I want to slant the discussion to the 5 most memorable or influential books you read between the ages of 18-21 and whether or not all or some of them retain your esteem to this day.
Please turn the page.
An outfit called Anderson Analytics produces research for the market mad. Their latest list of the top 5 reads on campus today compared to one year ago tells me one thing: in this age group, fantasy SELLS.
If there'd been a Top Ten List in this survey, then "
The Road by Cormack McCarthy,
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins,
Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, and of course
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown would have been on it." Even more fantasy.
What I remember about Big Books on Campus in my day was True Grit, The Godfather, and (GAK!) Love Story were all best sellers and seen in the hands of students. I know I read none of them. But I did see all the movies.
Was I a snob? Did I turn my nose up at popular fiction? I think I must have been because I'm one today, going out of my way (almost) to not read mass market bestsellers. Instead, I hunt for titles by authors who win literary prizes and who are more international than American. The height of snobbery! But if such an attitude to literature as I have puts me in the way of books by J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Sonya Chung, Per Petterson, V.S. Naipaul, Peter Carey, Sebastien Japrisot, Orhan Pamuk, Da Chen, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Alessandro Barrico, Clare Morrall, Richard Russo, Hilary Mantel, John Banville, and Margaret Atwood, then I am content with being a snob.
My patience for The English Patient as a mature reader outstripped my patience for The French Lieutenant's Woman in my youth. My interest in fictional sexual relationships is better fulfilled by pursuing A Reliable Wife than it was by flipping through Valley of the Dolls. Any yearning for Westerns is slaked by Lonesome Dove more than anything by Zane Gray ever wrote. I'll let Dorothy Dunnett satisfy my craving for historical sweep rather than James Michener, who I read in my teens.
That said, I accept there's no accounting for taste and that no one can be held accountable for their taste. No defense is needed, nor should it be supplied when questioned about your favorite books and authors. But I will maintain that one's reading tastes should mature and change, and certain authors we adored before our 26th birthdays, perhaps should gather dust in our memories. And in some cases may best be buried under it!
I don't know how I've changed as a reader, precisely, from who I was as a reader in my late teens and early twenties. But it seems to me that there are a lot more and a lot better writers today than there were in the late middle of the 20th C. What I do know is that compared to my college self, this aging self has abundant free time and is fortunate enough in means to be able to indulge in reading delights rather than reading requirements. I loved reading just to learn as a college student-- don't get me wrong -- but now I think I love reading to gain wisdom: that learning that helps me make better decisions in life; to be more understanding of people, the world, history, and my environment; to read in appreciation of talent, not just in respect of expertise and cold intellectual curiosity.
The difference between my then self as a reader and my now self is that I read utterly to cater to the life of the imagining mind. I want to go out of this life having done and experienced all that I can, and when I can do and experience less, little, and not at all, I hope to continue to enjoy a vital and vibrant life of the imagination brought to me through great reads. Now and forever I am a disciple of this tenet:
To daydream is damn good.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
SUN |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
MON |
8:00 PM |
My Favorite Books & Authors |
billssha |
MON |
11:00 AM |
Songs of Ice and Fire |
Floja Roja |
TUE |
8:00 PM |
Readers & Book Lovers Newsletter |
Limelite |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
WED |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries: Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
2:00 PM (bi-weekly) |
eReaders & Book Lovers Club |
Limelite |
THU |
8:00PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
THU |
10:00 PM |
The Illustrated Imagination:Graphic Novels |
Cabbage Rabbit |
FRI |
9:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
etbnc, aravir |
SAT |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |
NOTE: Though not part of R&BLers Weekly Magazine Series, please look for "Indigo Kalliope: Poems From the Left" by various authors republished here every WED NOON by
aravir. Also look for "The Mad Logophile" by
Purple Priestess that appears intermittently, when the spirit moves her.
Other than that, nothing's happening.