I love the smell of books: new books, old books, used bookstores. Reading is such a tactile experience with the all the different kinds of paper, cover textures and book thicknesses. I love dog eared pages and pages I get to crease for the first time. Some of my books are like old friends (only they can't loan me money...) Reading online or even Kindle books is a comparatively sterile undertaking. There's just a huge difference between working through a good book and snacking on internet articles.
Ironically, I read a nice, brief article online a while back about how tech tends to atrophy our attention span when it comes to reading, and I think you should read it, too:
The article uses an illustration from the world of exercise to encourage more diligent effort in reading. I'll do the same thing. Anyone who works out has noticed that the first set of a weight lifting routine is typically tough, even if the weight is light. With each successive set you continue to add weight, however, until you reach your "max" for that workout. What is interesting, as well as gratifying, is when you drop a little weight after reaching that max, you find that it's much, much easier to lift than your very first set which was much lighter. You want to be stronger? Lift longer, lift heavier. Same with reading.
So what's the solution for online atrophy? Can the internet? I don't think so. The key is to be sure to we keep exercising our reading muscles. Maybe we'll tackle "proper diet" later...
2 comments:
reading "how long, o lord," by carson and re-reading his "call to spiritual reformation," plus douglas bond's biography of john knox.
the content of each is good, but i can't say any the books themselves have much character. the last neat book to handle that i read was a 1950's/60's copy of "cry the beloved country:" yellowed pages, deeply creased binding, faded and well-worn cover...had some history to it...
Oh yeah! I really enjoyed Cry The Beloved Country...although mine was a bit newer than yours.
Just finished Dever's "The Church" that we got at T4G. Nice overview of ecclesiology. I benefitted from it. And I don't think I have ever written out the word 'benefitted' before in my life. Now that's twice!
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