- There are no rules, it’s a club, we’re here to have fun, which is promised to all who:
- Read the book, and:
- Take notes – no matter how awesome the moment of delight, or how cool the new word, you will forget it; (I have 600 cubic feet of notes I forgot to take!);
- Think about it (“why did whatever happen whichever way it did?” Thinking/reflection is the mind’s built-in common sense locator, or BS-detector;
- Take a nap.
Bookclub timetable
The universe used me as an experiment to see how far someone can get (from Oswego?) without a watch and somewhere along the line I stopped paying much attention to any increment smaller and more specific than the change of seasons; that suits a proper attitude for the enjoyment of good literature. So, if we set six months as being the span of a book, will that suffice?
Let’s pick a day at random to serve as our Day 1, from which we measure the initial six months devoted to our first project. If we start in the middle of March we can take until the last days of summer to finish. OK then, March 15 – oh no, Caesar has dibs on that. Two days later is a sacred date here in the Bay State – March 17 is Evacuation Day, the day the English were run out of Boston.
Family – who’s invited?
As the eldest son of the eldest son of the family descending from Frank J. and Berenice Swift Read, I humbly accept my inheritance and assume the role of Emperor of Ice Cream and related matters, including, but not limited to, metaphysics, metatarsals, and anti-mopery.
Bookclub membership shall be limited to persons descended thusly, plus their spouses, ex-spouses, wanna-be spouses, people with plain and frilly blouses, and others who arrive here by way of the google. So long as you are of good will, you are welcome.
Is listening to books as good as reading books?
No – READing is FUNdamental.
Reading is an intellectual activity – it is an act that puts your whole mind to work. Good books are loaded with passages that demand we pause and reflect – maybe even re-read a passage, just to be sure we read what we think we did.
Listening is a passive thing – it requires your mind to stop what it was doing, put the toys away, sit up straight, and Pay Attention. The sound of the reader’s voice adds an utterly useless and potentially distracting aspect. Sound goes straight to the emotional core, it bypasses the intellect, it makes you feel something, whether you want it to or not.
To summarize: read books, listen to music.
Is racism artificial hatred?
I would suggest that Harper Lee’s two books illustrate the work of artificial* hatred, which is hatred that comes from a wounded mind rather than a wounded body, the way natural** hatred is meant to arise. Does that make sense to you?
If it does, then it may be a useful guide to understanding these books, which serve as snapshots of the United States, which are divided by the artificial hatred called racism, which term itself is a theory articulated by social scientists.
How anyone can apply the discipline of science to society, is beyond me!
[*artificial=man-made; **natural=not man-made (artificial doesn’t mean fake; fake implies intent to deceive)]