It's Hard to Be a Reader

It seems that reading is all around us. Directions, signs, mail, the infamous text message, email, work email, school email, all these nonchalant forms us reading just to make it through everyday life. Sometimes after a busy day at work when I've spent all day trying to read, and decipher, other people’s questions, it's surprising that I want to go home and read for fun.

The idea of reading for fun should be exactly that: fun. On the contrary, sometimes searching for that right book, the book that will hit that arbitrarily established, perfect selection is almost impossible to find. Why is this?

I have a few reasons and a few examples to suggest:

Reason #1:

My first answer to this frustrating question is publishing. Have you ever browsed through a bookstore and seen the massive amount of totally off the wall titles? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there is a book dealing with anything you can think of. Has the publishing world even heard of the word discretion? Do they know the difference between utter garbage and useful, entertaining material? I'm not talking about bestsellers and children's books. I'm talking about the How to Manuals for everything under the sun. The plethora of self helps books that restate the same topics monthly. Do people actually read these books?? I'd just like to know? Are these the types of books that geniuses read so that they can win Jeopardy?

Reason #2

Great Expectations. Anyone who has ever read a really good book, a book that they absolutely just loved, now has their expectations too high to ever really enjoy a good book again. This is why reading a good book is bittersweet. You can no longer purely enjoy a book if you take the time to think about how much you're enjoying it, getting out of it, learning from it and the impression it's made on you. Oh, you can think about it and how much you like it, but in the back of your mind you're gradually counting down to the end.

It gets worse; after you've read that title that blows away all other options you spend the rest of your time trying to find something better. It's a vicious cycle.

#3

Here's a great example: I'm a huge Jane Austen fan. I absolutely love "Sense and Sensibility." Unfortunately, my love of all things Jane Austen does not automatically offshoots and topical related Jane Austen novels any good. I was recently reading "Austenland," a contemporary novel about a New York City writer, of course, lands a trip to a Pride and Prejudice inspired reality vacation. I made the mistake of reading 100 pages more than I should of, trying to trick myself since it's only a 200 page book. Alas, I finally gave up, being bored to death by generic clichés, an obvious story line and a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw. The thing that makes me the most frustrated is that I wasted minutes, hours of my life reading crap that will have no lasting impression. Ugh.

To counter this semi-negative essay I will include some of my favorite titles on the sidebar to the right.