Sunday, January 01, 2012
Which books to read first?
At Christmas our families generally give each other books. Since we take home those we received, but won’t be seeing each others' books for a while, reading what the other person got is a higher priority than reading what was tagged with our own names. (We often have similar interests, though not similar tastes.) Logical, right? Forgiven?
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I just read "Extreme Fear," the first thing I downloaded onto the Kindle that Santa brought me for Christmas. Great read, but something that stuck with me even more than the fascinating primary subject was the author's distinction between reflective thinking and reflexive thinking. The latter is "gut" thinking, very fast and instinctive but sometimes disastrous in an emergency, especially one involving new technology. The former is logical cognition, which tends to be a bit slow but can do wonders with anomalous new facts. Very much like the id and the superego, or the hind-brain and the fore-brain.
Anyway, the point is, my superego generally decides what book to buy, but my id decides which one to pick up off the pile to read, and it often chooses one that was in my husband's stocking rather than my own. So I find myself this week reading about chicken husbandry. (Actually, I suppose my id led me to choose that particular book from among my husband's many wish-list items.) I think my id also is in charge of which books to finish and which to put down. Life is wonderful when both brain and gut are delighted with the same book.
Totally forgiven.
We have long considered it a given that a book received was read by the giver before wrapping it. Also, relatives only in town for a week or so are granted considerable license.
Even so, it doesn't really work. We are all online for so much of what used to be reading time that we don't finish anywhere near as much as we used to. Our lives have changed.
Yes, online reading eats more and more time. Even so, Christmas afternoons tend to have everybody sitting around reading something. But after an hour or so somebody has to go check email (and it never stops there). And now there's another book I have to add to the list, after seeing Texan99's description above and on Grim's place.
Oh, and lest I be misunderstood--I'm one of the email folks.
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