Childhood literacy

The Weekly Wrap: September 27-October 3

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The Weekly Wrap: September 27-October 3

A Reading Paradox

I have over 4,000 books in my pocket. And the device in my pocket can access the libraries of the world. Never has it been more evident to me that there are SO many books and so little time. Yet at a time of such unprecedented access, statistics would suggest that many of us are reading less than ever.

So what is the deal? I can’t help but think that the same device offering access to so many books also serves to distract us from them. Social media apps are designed to keep us scrolling. And it trains us to read in bits and bytes. Consequently, our longform reading muscles are going flabby.

I also wonder if many of us are simply too busy and too spent when we are not busy to read a book. Watching a video or listening to a podcast are far easier. And there is a wide range of good options.

If that’s you, no problem. But for a change of pace, may I suggest that some evening you grab a mug, and spend a quiet evening with an engrossing book. The stories we watch on the screens of our minds can be far richer than on our other screens. Need a recommendation? Your local bookseller or librarian would be glad to help. There’s a world of books available.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Several years ago, I had the chance to host physician and ethicist Lydia Dugdale in a forum talking about end of life issues. In “The Literacy Cure,” she discusses childhood literacy and explores why we are failing children when we know how to teach kids reading.

“Librarians on Libraries” features a host of librarians talking about what they actually do, the challenges they face, and what libraries need.

As we get older, we pay attention to our mental processes for signs of any deterioration. But what if you were from a family suffering from a hereditary condition leading to dementia? “The Mysteries of Human Personality” reviews Robert Kolker’s The Vanishing Family. While focusing on frontotemporal dementia, the book considers broader issues of dementia care and treatment.

Philosopher Matthew Adelstein posited the provocative idea that insects matter more than people. Sounds like something a philosopher might do for a good argument. It’s caused quite an online stir. In “Do Insects Matter More than People?,” Paul Nedilisky explores what arguments can and cannot do.

October is LGBTQ+ History Month. Whatever your beliefs, I’m persuaded that it is valuable to understand other communities from the inside. JSTOR has assembled another of its fabled article collections that can help with this in “Reading for LGBTQ+ History Month.”

Quote of the Week

Poet Wallace Stevens was born October 2, 1879. He said something that sounds like me.

“It’s not always easy to tell the difference between thinking and looking out of the window.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Earler, I mentioned the plethora of books and resources at our disposal in the internet age. The folks at Mere Orthodoxy are adding to that with “The Faith Received,” an online collection of 19,597 (currently) theological texts from the early church to the early modern period. There are scans of texts, original language, and English translations. And its all free. The website offers six different tours to show how to make the most of the resources available.

Computers hit the scene a few years before I was born. Jill Lepore’s new The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State begins with chronicling a history of all the development I’ve scene in our lifetime and the warnings as early as the 1950’s of how our technology could come to shape or even control our society. It’s a conversation that has gone on for sixty years, one, by and large, that the tech industry has preferred we not have.

It’s funny how TBR piles work. I currently seem to be in a patch of long books. Just finished one on Jonathan Edwards, am in the middle of one on early Christian theology, and have awaiting me the longest of these, a landmark work on the Apostle Paul. I try to compensate with shorter and easier to read books, including some children’s books.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Ryan Lokkesmoe, Accidental Pagans

Tuesday: Richard Osman, The Last Devil to Die

Wednesday: Laurie Brink, Practicing Radical Advent

Thursday: Stuart Kaminsky, A Fatal Glass of Beer

Friday: Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 27-October 3.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Fondling Your Books

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Winston Churchill, an avid bibliophile and writer, as well as statesman, once said,

“If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.”

The other day, I wrote a post titled Close the Libraries? and was surprised by the number of comments I received not only about the importance of libraries as physical places in our communities where we encounter not only books but each other. I also received several comments about what I would call the “physicality of real books.”  Readers of the blog posted about how they enjoyed the sight, feel, and even the smell of their books. Some talked about children and picture books and curling up on a parents lap to share a good book together.

Research has shown that having books in the home enhances childhood literacy. C.S. Lewis grew up in a home filled with books that nurtured his love of reading. As I child, I remember exploring the shelves of books in our living room, basement, and way back in the closet in my bedroom. Sometimes, it was fun just to look at the dust jackets and sometimes to delve into books to learn about basic mechanics, science, or just to see what my mom liked to read. I wonder if there had been a tablet or e-reader sitting on the table if I would have had the same experience and same delight in exploration.

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Honore de Balzac Novels volume 1

I have old paperbacks like Bonhoeffer’s Life Together that I’ve read and re-read over the years. The pages have turned brownish yellow and some fall out as the inexpensive binding has become brittle. But these books chronicle my life in the margin notes as my understanding and interaction with the ideas of the authors have changed and grown. I treat these aging old friends with tenderness rather than just replace them with new editions or digital copies. Perhaps for the same reason, I like to listen to old LPs and CDs not only for the richness of the music but the connection to the time and place that I bought them, and in some cases the times where I’ve been a part of a performance of this music.

I have a collection of Balzac novels that I received from my mother. Inside the front cover, I find my grandfather Scott’s signature. The books were published in 1923 and my mother spoke of how she used to love to read this as a young girl. In holding these books, I leaf through pages pored over by my grandfather and mother.  I have Bibles owned by both of my grandmothers and the passages they underlined and the notes they scrawled connect me to the values that have formed our family.

Title Page from volume 1 of Balzac

Title Page from volume 1 of Balzac

I don’t think my son and daughter-in-law would appreciate getting all my books! But I wonder if there is some value in thinking about what are the books that have most defined us and that we don’t want subject to the ephemeral nature of digital media. Maybe our children are the best to answer this.  There may be others we keep as our “old friends” whose look, feel, and even smell we enjoy until the time comes when we are beyond these pleasures. And there are the books I discard, and some that I do acquire electronically because they have served their purpose once I’ve read them–whether for information or enjoyment or both. Perhaps a blessing of this age is that we can enjoy both the best of print books and the best of e-resources. Must we settle for the either-or zero sum thinking that says we must choose a smaller, less richly textured world? I hope not.