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...
7 comments:
Damn! I'm clicking and that books not moving. I could snuggle between those beauties forever.
Happy HNT sweetie ;)
WOW! It took me a minute or two to even realize that there was a book in that picture. Hmmm, maybe I was distracted by something. Great Pic!
Have a Great Day!
R.
Nice post and pics! HHNT!
last one i read was 'reading lolita in tehran.' i don't think i looked quite as enticing when i read it.
HHNT
Your breasts are smarter than mine I think ;-)
Looks like you have a reading buddy - HHNT
Well...beautiful breasts and interesting post.
At one point in my past, I lived in subsidized housing. I was a single mother. I was attending college. It was a neccessity. However the immediate assumption, upon learning my address, was that I was stupid and trash. Ah, society.
And on that note, I wish you a belated HHNT!!
Post a Comment