Thank you Mr. Carnegie.

Seattle and King County, Washington, have wonderful public library systems.  Like most public library systems in the state, they're connected to other public libraries and to the bountiful stacks at the state universities.  (The only drawback is that they do suffer from politically correct management policies.  I ignore those when I can and protest them when I must.)

My capricious mind tends to wander off into odd corners and won't come out until I've overloaded it with obscure details.  Not a problem for our librarians.  All I have to do is ask and a week later books show up like magic.  And like many public library systems in the United States, ours is a direct descendant of Andrew Carnegie's gracious philanthropy.  To him I owe my salvation from a common - and serious - malady.

People tend to read things they know they'll like, or that reinforce existing beliefs.  You can dig yourself deep into a rut this way.  Long ago, a college professor inspired me to maintain what she called the "first three books" rule.  It's a simple game.  Often enough to challenge yourself, you walk into the library, stand in front of the nonfiction new books, close your eyes and touch the shelves. 

No cheating, you can't stand in front of your favorite section, the one where you know you'll find books of interest to you.  Now open your eyes, check out and READ the three books nearest your hand.

Maybe you'll end up finding out more than you really need to know about the economics of wheat production in the nineteenth century.  Or you're a dedicated hater of couch potatoes and big-money sports, and you have to plow through an autobiography of some overpaid, self-inflated jock.  You could be a Christian with no intellectual curiosity about other religions, and find yourself holding a 782 page history of Buddhist influences in Europe. 

Tough.  Life is full of injustices.  And the biggest fight is always the struggle to manage our own minds.  Keep your brain agile and resilient when the going is easy, or when hard times come you'll be trying to flex out of your mental chains as well as fighting the external enemies. 

If you read really slowly or have a very pressured life, cut back the number of books, but don't let yourself off the hook entirely.   Often I've hated the books I've had to read, but at least I've gained some facts to support my dislikes.  Just as often I find myself back in the library asking for more books on previously ignored subjects. 

So I'd like to thank the librarians who facilitate my endless transfer requests.  My mother who made reading a priority through some very hard times.  And Mr. Carnegie, whose libraries have helped me push the edges of my mind; providing quantities of books I could never have afforded to buy.

Another tip, if you have children.  My mother had an old-fashioned lockable lawyers bookcase, and in it she put every book she secretly wanted me and my brothers to read.  She talked loudly and often about how those books were off limits, too expensive and too adult for our childish minds.  Often at night one of us would sneak out of bed on a cookie hunt, to see Mom drinking hot cocoa and cooing over one of those forbidden books.

Then she manufactured a situation where my tattle-tale brother saw where she was hiding the key.  Bingo!  We were so proud of ourselves, sneaking those books off to treehouses, hiding them in the warm corner next to the furnace in the basement. It wasn't until high school honors English that I realized I'd been played for a sucker by my own sweet mom.  The very first day of class, the teacher handed out a list of 300 classic, must-read books ........

By time I had children of my own, I'd forgiven my mom.  I stole her trick and perpetrated it on my own children; literate, book-loving adults now in a generation of poorly informed video game addicts.  Feel free to abuse your own children in this way.  They'll love you for it when they're 30. 

Comments

[Val]

The list, I must have it!
(being basically the lazy type)
Great idea...

[ZZMike]

That's a great idea. But - 3 a week? I know of people who haven't read three books - ever.

I echo that thanks to Mr Carnegie - that bloated plutocrat that today's liberals would claim has way too much money and it isn't fair and we could do so much more with it and ...

There are a few books I'd have a hard time with. Al Franken's, for example. They give me such a headache. On the other hand, sometime ago, somebody said that if he had only one paper to read, it would be the opposition's. There's a lot to be said for that.

Val: Here's a start: Mortimer Adler's "Great Books":

Great boks of the Western World
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World

Some homeschoolers are in the loop:

Great Books Academy
http://www.greatbooksacademy.org/

One of the things Adler said was that it isn't enough to just read them (unless you're an exceptional person) - you need to get together with other people who've read them and talk about them. I suppose that's one of the things college is supposed to be for.

[sonofsheldon]

That's a trick I should have had when my kids were young. On the other hand, my now teenaged son occasionally asks me if I own certain books he's heard about from teachers or friends. Among others, he's read The Illiad and is now threatening to read Dante's Inferno, once he decides which translation to give a go.

[Yanni Znaio]

If you want to really get your mind blown, try Thomas Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions".