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lgpiper

Reading Slothfully

I was told in elementary school that I only could read at half the speed for success in college. Oh well, one benefit of slow reading is you get to live with the characters a longer period of time. I read in a vain attempt to better understand people. At my other homes, I'm known as a spouse, pop, guy in the choir, physical chemist, computer/web dilettante and child-care provider. In theory, I'm a published author, if you consider stuff like Quenching Cross Sections for Electronic Energy Transfer Reactions Between Metastable Argon Atoms and Noble Gases and Small Molecules to count as publications. I've strewn dozens of such fascinating things to the winds.

Currently reading

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
Jules Verne
The Spirit of the Border
Zane Grey
Ramona the Brave (Ramona, #3)
Beverly Cleary
The Underground Man (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
Ross Macdonald
Delilah of the Snows
Harold Bindloss
Mrs. Miniver
Jan Struther
Betsy-Tacy Treasury (P.S.)
Maud Hart Lovelace
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
The Way Some People Die
Ross Macdonald
Envy of Angels
Matt Wallace

1984

1984 - George Orwell, Erich Fromm I had already decided to read this before all the flap about government spying came out. I figured it was just time to re-read this classic. I remembered some from having read before, but all the political commentary regarding the powerful and the vast unwashed, proles in this book, I hadn't remembered. Unfortunately, while we've yet to achieve the level of official brutality envisioned in this book, the basics of a small percent keeping the "lower classes" in their thrall isn't a whole lot different from what we're seeing in the modern U.S.

In part I read this book when I did as a prelude to reading Murakami's latest, 1Q84. Soon, I'll see if there are cross references which made the re-reading of Orwell's masterpiece a worthwhile step to Murakami, who is probably my favorite author ever.

Update:
Nope, no reason to read this before reading Murakami's 1Q84. I think there was only one 1984 reference it this whole book. One should, however, most definitely read both.