smakupfx made the books shown here-his work is very interesting.
What was the Last Book You Read? Or more to the point, have you recently read a book at all? Maybe Read a Book Day would be a good time to start. Of course, looking at a blog is reading, just not the same kind of reading that goes with a good book.
I’m totally open on this point, I’ll take any book at all. From comic book to Ulysses to the Bible. But I do want it to be a book you have started and finished, which might leave out both the Bible and Ulysses, though I have managed to wade through the better part of both myself. I don’t think Graphic Novels are a step above comics-they’re still comics. But that’s OK, because I grew up reading comics and found most of them to be pretty damned good reading. Of course, I also watched a lot of Gilligan’s Island and I Dream of Jeanie at the time.
I’m in the mist of reading The Dumbest Generation-Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30. The author is a statics fiend and never met a percentage or study group he didn’t like. The first few chapters are so filled with numbers that they are virtually meaningless almost as soon as you read them. But the actual numbers don’t matter that much, the point is that young people are not as smart as they used to be. Not in the Classical Sense of Smart. That is to say-knowing stuff and understanding what it means. Most of them seem to be of the opinion that they don’t need to learn anything so long as they reach out and Google it. I tend to think a bit that way myself.
One of the studies talks about how young people don’t like to read any more. Well, they don’t like to read books for pleasure or leisure. When I was in High School and being forced to read the likes of Huckleberry Finn and Romeo & Juliet I didn’t like to read that stuff either. But I was reading comics, sci fi mags, and lots of science fiction and fantasy books. I didn’t have video games, though a rich friend did have Space Invaders-which he would never share. I also didn’t have cable, and so was left to watch the five or six broadcast channels in the area. We didn’t have a lot of money so we didn’t go to a lot of movies.
I was not a whiz in school, but I do know most of the answers to Jay Leno’s Jaywalking questions. The Wife is pretty smart as well-but she didn’t know what Hannibal took over the Alps with him when that was the $100 question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It was Elephants. I have learned a lot since leaving school-but for all my hatred of the public school system, it did a pretty good job of pounding in a lot of the basics. With the help of the basics, I have moved on to a broader world of knowledge.
And that is the trick, getting someone interested in lifelong learning. Not just how to play WOW or make a living in SL-(World of War and Second Life)-but how to live in the real world. I have never that great with the real world stuff myself, and so I like to read.
I am always reading a new book, or dipping back into an old one. So the last book I read is hard to put a finger on. The books I am currently reading-Loving Frank, Carpe Demon, Expert Podcasting, Vocie Actor’s Guide to Home Recording, Rocco’s Five Minute Flavor, Portrait Lighting, and varied and sundry other novels and texts on this, that, and the other thing. So yeah, I’ll be reading a book today. Most likely two or three. Not to mention the blogs I will stop by and give a quick glace. If you write it, I just might read it.
So read a book, you might even give Moby Dick or Uylesses a shot. Or maybe catch up on the Twilight books instead.
