On Reading, End of Year Reflections
Many people seem to think that they lose a great deal of critical discourse outlet once they are out of college. I'm lucky not to feel this way. While I haven't stepped into a classroom for a while, I'm still in touch with the people I used to have a lot of discussion with, so we still regularly debate random topics or exchange reviews of books and media. We'd have to be satisfied with conversations happening asynchronously now though, instead of the lively on the spot back-and-forth we could have all day long. As far as mental nourishment goes, it's not a terribly bad tradeoff to contend with.
It's also the reason I no longer do media reviews online. I've had the thought to post my reading log and impressions here on my blog, but in the end the itch was just not there once I talked about the book at length with my group. They know me and my viewpoints. I wouldn't have to self-censor or overexplain my grounds. However much I'd like to pretend I'm capable of public mea culpa, and as much as public learning sounds tantalizing, I'm afraid that any attempt on a public hobby tracker would make it feel performative. Would I be tempted to pick a book to be perceived a certain way? Would I be tempted to catch the feverish pace of "a true reader"? Are you a true reader if you don't finish X book a year? So much of our life already feels like this. I'd like to keep it my private selfish indulgence, after all.
But the one thing I do miss, and I only realize this as I'm auditing my reading list this year, is serendipitious reading. I haven't been in a library or a public reading room for as many years I stopped attending college classes, so everything I've read since I left college was something I picked personally. They revolved around topics or authors I explored at a given time, every single one of them felt like things I would read. I would blame the algorithm, but the blame for this level of self-curation doesn't lay entirely on the internet. When I was in school, I could saunter into a library or a student lounge, see random stuff on the shelves, and pick something interesting I wouldn't have thought to check out. I'm not on social media, so for the large part my current reading is informed by lists written by people in the particular fields I pick. Clearly, I should broaden my selection a bit.
It's also a good reminder that I should probably stretch my legs and visit a library more often. I still live a stone's throw away from where I used to live as a student, so even the ol' college libraries are technically within reach. I used to rely on physical libraries for the endless supply of reading materials. The increase in disposable income and the ease to procure books either physically or digitally (including digital/virtual libraries) have erased this need. These interfaces aren't good for random browsing, so I tend to make use of the search capabilty, narrowing the possibility space of discovery.
I suspect there's more factor at play here. Back then, even if I wanted to go down the rabbit hole, I was limited by the amount of books available on the subject. I exhausted all the libraries in my K-12 years. I even pleaded with the librarians to be allowed access to the teachers' bookcases because I simply ran out of things to read in the student section. Now, I could binge read dozens of books on the same topic. Downloading them to my Kindle takes a couple minutes at most. Not willing to shell out any money? Academic book prices too obscene? There's Project Gutenberg and The Internet Archive and, if you feel especially unscrupulous, some other...shadowy archives and libraries.
Note to self, next time I should try pulling random books from a shop or a database and see if something catches my eye.