: the promiscuous reader :

Libraries do, they’re huge advocates of gratuitous reading. In this pursuit, they will eagerly, if not enthusiastically, aid and abet. They’re brothels for the mind, you know, there to satisfy our curious lust for knowledge. Left to our own devises, humans are too lazy and too cheap to experiment.

When we buy a book, we tend to play it safe. We go with an author we know or a subject we’re comfortable with, nothing unusual or daring. It’s our fallback position, the same old same old, the tried and true, every time. Where’s the adventure, where’s the excitement? The fire’s gone out. And so, I might add, has creativity. We’re in a rut.

Stop following routine and start pursuing your curiosity.

Do you know how many books are loose in the world today? Billions. There’s no time to be choosy. Cruise the aisles and shelves with heedless, reckless abandon. Break out of your comfort zone and explore new subjects, like counterfeiting or quilting or particle physics, anything surprising and interesting. If you really want to blow your stodgy mind, check out a graphic novel. Thrills this way come.

Being inquisitive is, in fact, very healthy and invigorating. You needn’t sneak around like a peeping tom, unless you like that sort of thing.

I’ll tell you what’s shameful. Proofreading. It’s entirely too slipshod and careless. Publishers have no excuse for skimping on fact-checking and proofing. Not when they demand $35 for The Innovators by Walter Isaacson. $28 for the new Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Hanging Girl, which is where you’ll find the glaring, egregious error pictured below.

Another thing coming? Thing doesn’t even make sense. The expression is ‘think,’ you’ve got another think coming. There’s an ugly one in Special Topics in Calamity Physics, too — ‘And try to eat something once and a while.’ Once and a while, duh, should be once in a while. Then, in the very same book, Jimmy Stewart is spelled ‘Stuart.’ Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Quality control isn’t what it used to b — I, uh, better stop there before I’m off on another tangent.

Though I love libraries, I do sometimes find it a little depressing to wander past row after row of books and realize that I’ll only be able to read the tiniest fraction of all those volumes on display.