Reading

Right now I am reading (actual books) two books. One is My Antonia by Willa Cather which a friend of mine was amazed I hadn’t read before. I am some 50 pages into it, and so far so good.

I am also reading Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men, which I won as a door prize at the Adjunct faculty conference at the tech school where I “instruct”. Basically it is a study of why high school boys – well, the title gives the purpose. I have multiple interests regarding the education of young men and am hoping I gain some insight – however, my hopes are tempered by the source of the information.  

But of course I am always listening to something in my long commutes 3 days a week. One of my favorite listens (as reported here before) are audio books by Louis L’Amour. My son forwarded an article about him from a website called The Art of Manliness. A couple of L’Amour quotes stood out.

First: “The idea of education has been so tied to schools, universities, and professors that many assume there is no other way, but education is available to anyone within reach of a library.”

Of course this observation based on the premise (more prevalent in the past than today) that education is not a utilitarian pursuit of employment. Colleges and universities are often (but not always) in the business of job training as opposed to education. I can truly say I have learned more about just about everything from my own reading habits than I ever learned in school,/college the exceptions being in math/calculus and some areas of science.

The second quote I also find very true:

“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”

Some may my following observation is a bit strange, but one reason I enjoy many John Grisham novels (surely light fare) is that they really make me think about things-plight of peoples, relations, state of law etc. Obviously there are books written to make one think-and I read those. But often I find light fiction does the same.

Oremus pro invicem!