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MochaMike

MochaMike

Currently reading

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Marcel Proust, Lydia Davis
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50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know - John Sutherland

Okay, in a nutshell, here it is: this book is perfect —

Perfect for:
1) when you have 5-10 minutes while waiting to see the doctor, dentist, barber, beautician, whoever the heck you might end up waiting to see. One could do worse than reading this one.
2) just before going to sleep and you want to read something, without commitment or the investment of much thought. Very good for that, indeed.
3) Brushing up on a subject of interest to you before seeking out more exhaustive sources of information (see below).
4) * (I will not, NOT, I tell you, sully the integrity of this mini-review by the inclusion of item 4 from the list on the list. See the entry buried below, well below, where it belongs.


There is an interesting entry on Literary Inundation and its remedies: genre-reading, dictatorial reading lists, and the the long tail approach advocated by Christopher Anderson (essentially, book-mapping). To those, I would add Goodreads, primarily as a good resource for finding great books to read next. Notice I said “good resource for finding great books” and not “great” resource for finding “good” books. Good-great, not great-good. (attention to detail, ya’all)

A better choice, and I’ve said this many times, is Harmon & Holdman’s A Handbook to Literature—even at a couple times the price, it’s hundreds of times a greater resource.

Now, that pesky item 4: If you are one of those people who, for whatever reason, feel the need, urgent or otherwise, to maintain a library within the confines of your…uh, let’s just say one of the most private rooms in your quarters, then get that stack of reading material out of there post-haste, get thee to a reputable coffee shop and order a grande-quad shot, soy, no-whip mocha, and that problem will take care of itself. (Especially if you’re one of those people who tongue-moisten a finger before turning a page. Ewww!) Oh, and for the sake of consistency, this is perfect for ebook readers who don't care to see another tree's death go toward such things.