Reading List

I should prolly read this book....

Of course, by reading it will get me into more trouble...

There is no winning....

HNT-72

God what a week...

We got home from LI on Sunday night, which naturally leaves me two whole days to get the girls ready for school. And a blistering hard two days they always are. (Apparently we believe in testing our getting-ready-skills to the limit)

So now that they are off (and I won't show you a picture of them since they are far more beautiful than I) (Right, Poppy and Jolly Roger?) I will show you how I took my brief respite today? (they only had half a day)

A blissful hour

Yes, I took an hour to myself on Sunday. I got away from the noise. I got away from the arguments.

I went to the house.. even though it is not quite finished, my master bedroom porch is.

I have dreamed of this porch for two years now.

So I took a blanket, some water and a book and I enjoyed it. In the way I hoped to enjoy it most.

Did I get any color?

HNT - 36... On Reading

What is the last book you read? Not the book that you told Barbara Walters or Vanity Fair that you read... The real book.

The last couple of days have been frustrating to me because of this very subject. It started with this:

The Greater Washington Initiative created an ad campaign to advertise that their local workforce are highly educated. How did they do it? Juxtaposing the image of two commuters. One is reading a romance novel, the other Plato's Republic.

This set off a flurry of commentary at one of my favorite websites Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels . They believe, rightly so that one's reading choices are no indication or their intelligence or even their educational level. Of course, this has opened them (us, as I consider myself among their numbers) to further ridicule in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Now don't get me wrong. I have read Plato. The Republic, The Symposium, The Protagoras (now THAT is a tough read). I have read Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Cicero, Virgil, Pliny, Tacitus, Thomas Aquinas, Justin Martyr, Gelasius, Augustine, Jerome, The Venerable Bede, Abelard and Heloise, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Montaigne, Galileo, Newton, Knox, Calvin, Luther, Pascal, Cromwell, More, Diderot, Robespierre, Murat, Mazarin, Bentham, DeToqueville, John Stuart Mill, Franklin, Paine, Hegel, Thoreau, Alcott, Emerson, Marx, Engels, Neitzsche, Weber, Bismarck, Herzl, Chamberlain, Petain, Freud, Keynes, Hitler, Churchill, Lenin, Sartre, and Chomsky. I am highly educated. If I do say so, myself, there are not many people more educated than I.

But I also read crap. I read mysteries, thrillers and chick lit... Hell, once I even tried to read Ann Coulter (I don't recommend it.. she doesn't make alot of sense and is exceptionally shrill)!

I also read romance novels. THERE! I said it! I read my first when I was in 7th grade... so I guess that would make me 12 or so. Lady Vixen.... by Shirlee Busbee. I still remember it. My friends and I passed it around... we devoured it. It went from Debby to Donna, to Emily to Carol to me eventually... I was a year younger so they made me go last. Oh what book. It ruined me for other romance novels, really... Since then I need a much higher quality... better plots, better writing and hotter, much hotter sex.

Should I be ridiculed for my choice of reading materials? I don't think so.

Do my reading materials indicate any lack of intellect on my part? Definitely not. I am currently reading a book about evolutionary biology (Sex, Time and Power by Leonard Shlain) and a romance novel (Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas)

Oh, and any guy reading Plato on the train is an insufferable show-off. No one can truly read for deep understanding in that environment. Trust me. So maybe a guy like this is turning the pages, but he isn't understanding it...