Monday, July 24, 2006

An Idea for Blog Posts

So, this morning, I was procrastinating, lying around, reading a book I got out of the library called Glamourous Disasters, about this dude who is living in NYC making his living tutoring rich kids for the SAT, and I thought to myself, "Self, I realize that this is a kind of lame book, but at the same time, it's exactly the sort of book that I would choose to read for pleasure, and I wonder whether my blog readers would choose similar sorts of things, or whether they would like reviews of such material so that they can avoid it?" And then I thought to myself, "Hey, and wouldn't it be great if we chose a day - sort of like Poetry Friday, but instead something like Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays or something - and on that day people would post about a book that they've read recently that's NOT RELATED TO WORK. AT ALL. So, for example, I checked out this essay collection about chick lit when I went to the library yesterday, and I'm not using it for anything specifically, so it's kind of a pleasure read, but not really, because it's literary criticism, right? Thus, I would not be talking about that book on Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays. I would, however, talk about books like the following (just to give some examples):
  • The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
  • On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Maybe, though this might fall into the category of work-reading, kind of...)
  • Sex as a Second Language by Alisa Kwitney
  • Passion: A Novel of the Romantic Poets by Jude Somebodyorother, which incidentally, is an awesome book.
  • Girls in Trouble by another author whom I can't remember.
See what I'm saying? Just crap that I'm reading - some of it of higher quality and some of decidedly lesser quality, but just the stuff I'm reading for fun. And the reviews wouldn't give everything away, but they could provide a basic synopsis and basic reactions - I'm not talking about professional-caliber reviewing here at all. I'm talking about "I was really annoyed because the main character was so whiny." You know, the sort of stuff I'd tell my students wasn't particularly articulate but that really does get at whether a book's worth picking up or not. (Also, I'm totally intrigued by the idea of getting to find out what you all are reading.)

So does this seem like a cool idea? Would people be into it? If so, I'll be happy to get the ball rolling with an inaugural post this week....

11 comments:

unsafe.at.any.speed said...

I love this idea, yes, yes, let's do it!!!

Could non-work-related nonfiction be included, as well?

Dr. Crazy said...

Oh yes, totally. The only rule as far as I'm concerned would be that the books MUST be for pleasure - non-fiction, fiction, whatever is fine (and I think we'd all enjoy seeing the range of what people read, don't you think?)

avocadoinparadise said...

I dig special days for certain topics. And books are always great to read & read about! One really good certain day theme is http://www.darfurmondays.blogspot.com/

helenesch said...

Yes, I'd really like that! I'm always interested in hearing what books others are reading for pleasure, and in sharing my own thoughts and recommendations.

amanda said...

I'm a frequent reader and infrequent commenter (hello!) but I thought I'd pop in to say this is a lovely idea! :)

phd me said...

I'm not sure how much pleasure reading I'll manage once school starts but I'm in. Maybe you'll encourage me to keep reading for fun despite the workload.

Mel said...

I love seeing what other people are reading for fun. I'd do it, even if it means "confessing" some of my fluffier choices...

PG said...

Sounds good. It'll also encourage me to take more time to read for pleasure (instead of journal articles).

Kate said...

Yes, this is a great idea. It would be nice for all of us to take ourselves less seriously and take some public pleasure in the non-academic reading that we do!

marciano guerrero said...

For non-academic reading go to my blog. I tackle all topics, but grammar, syntax, and rhetoric are my joy in life. Go figure.

susan said...

This is a great idea--it would be neat to see what other folks are reading.