Each week, I buy about of two books. Each month, I manage to read about two books. My reading stack is getting huge because on average, I accumulate seven unread books per month. I felt guilty about not reading. My silent stacks of books chide me when I pass them on my way to bed after a couple hours of watching TV or DVDs, so I resolved, near the start of the new year, to do something about it.
My plan is simple: I read the introduction of the non-fiction books and the first chapter of the fiction books to decide if I really want to invest the time in reading the book. After a couple months of trying this, the approach shows a great deal of promise.
So far, I've read the first chapter of How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman. It is definitely a keeper. It's all about language and how medical doctors use and process verbal and nonverbal cues from their patients. It also describes how doctors can err and harm patients just by not paying attention. Other books captured me in and - to be honest - have sidetracked me from reading further first chapters are Elizabeth Samet's book called Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point, Lee Siegal's book Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, Tom Segev's book, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, and Clara Cooper Marcus's book, House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home.
Not all books are winners in capturing my interest. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Richard Dawkins book, The Selfish Gene, Azar Nafisi's, Reading Lolita in Tehran, and Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World will be waiting in the stacks a while longer.
Comments