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The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

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The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

My Reading Bubble

I am becoming ever more aware that I exist within a reading bubble. I interact with a lot of readers both in person and online. And yet it turns out that only 20 percent of people in this country account for 80 percent of all book sales. And while those sales are up, as is library usage, it doesn’t appear that this is from an explosion of new readers. Rather, it might be that many of us old readers are upping our game. For retirees like me that may be literally true.

This week at The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch announced “The End of Reading Is Here” (article below). What struck me is that she was describing a sharp cultural divide between a literate and post-literate culture. Surprisingly, it is not for the absence of reading, which comes in bits and bytes constantly in our online lives. But this is very different from longform reading involving the comprehension of extended arguments or plotlines.

Consequently, we maintain different forms of discourse, from a shift from text to audio-visual and from extended discourse and discussion to competing memes and graphics. I could go in all sorts of directions with this, but I would pose the question of which corresponds more truly to life as it really is? Is it longform, or the soundbite? The fact that I keep reading gives you my answer.

Five Articles Worth Reading

We discussed how we would downsize our books by half if we had to over at my Facebook page. For some, that was to think the unthinkable. Mendel Uminer faced this challenge when his landlord said 10,000 books in a 600 square foot flat was just “Too Many Books.”

From too many books we go to the above mentioned “The End of Reading Is Here.” One of the ideas in the article is that eras of literacy are moments in history and that ours may be coming to an end. Read the article and tell me what you think.

In “Who Wants to Be a Professor?,” Mary Townsend explores the process of graduate education that inculcates a certain “persona” that is associated with the idea of a professor. Through experiences of disillusionment, she comes to this conclusion: “For let me tell you the truth, this is the only thing that is real: a lifetime of books read for pleasure, just because. It reminded of a conversation with a grad student absorbed in literary criticism, when I had the temerity to ask, When was the last time you enjoyed a book?” The look!

I’ve often maintained that the life of faith is dynamic, not static. It’s not just flipping a switch from non-belief to belief. In “Bosom Buddies” an older poet and theologian talk about how what it means to believe has changed over time as they’ve wrestled with the vicissitudes of life.

I’ve always love The Millions previews, offering thoughtful synopses of what they think are some of the more significant books of the season. Well, they have done it again in “The Millions’ Great Summer 2026 Book Preview.”

Quote of the Week

Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871. Given the environmental impact of most forms of travel, we might consider this:

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I loved working through Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books. I’ve been reading one of her Felse Investigations. While set in modern times, I find this equally engaging. I think I’ve found a new (or not so new) series.

Maybe I’m too dogmatic, but I’ve pretty well concluded there is no place for using AI in the composition of books. Writing is hard work when done by humans but has brought us great and truly original works. Using AI to generate text just seems like cheating. And its also not always a very reliable researcher.

One would think getting to read lots of books is one of the perks of reviewing–and it is. But one of the most surprising satisfactions has been to work with authors, publicists, and readers and to engage with them as people. I think the reviewer who doesn’t like people misses out on a great deal and reviewing just becomes a grind. But that could just be me.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday, Lisa Gray, LFMT, Thriving in a Relationship When You Have Chronic Illness

Tuesday: Jonathan P. Walton, Beauty and Resistance

Wednesday: Roy McDaniel, Enacting Atonement

Thursday: Jill LePore, We The People

Friday: Ellis Peters, The Knocker on Death’s Door

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 5-11.

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

Book FOMO

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I figured it out. There is this weird phenomena for many of us who love books. We tend to acquire more books than we can possibly read in our lifetimes. There’s even a Japanese word for this, tsundoku. I’ve puzzled why we do that. Or to get more personal, why do I do that?

I think it comes down, at least in part for me, to fear of missing out (FOMO). I read a review of an interesting book. I learn of a book that addresses a question I’m interested in. I see a list of recommended books, or a footnote in a book I’m reading. My wife tells me about a book she’s heard about that is interesting. A book I’ve heard about turns up in a used book store, or at a low price on Amazon Kindle (usually $2.99 or less for me). I see a forthcoming book that looks interesting and request it for review.

I don’t want to miss out on a chance to read any of these great books. I rationalize this with the thought that I may get around to reading the book someday. For books I’ve identified for review, I usually do, since publishers don’t like to send out books to reviewers who don’t review their books. For others, I may end up pulling them out if they relate to a subject I want to read up on, or if they strike my fancy.

But that also means I literally have boxes of stored books acquired in years past, and it is increasingly unlikely that I will get to many of these unless the pandemic goes on for years (which none of us want!). Every one of those books was acquired for some reason of interest–I’d like to read about that, and want to have the book at hand. Alas, newer acquisitions pushed older ones aside into boxes, stored away in a closet.

As it happens, that closet is probably the best place to shelter in our home in the event of severe storms or tornado warnings we get a few times a year. We’ve agreed that those boxes of books must go, along with stacks of books I have read but don’t need to keep. It’s tough though–I can imagine doing the Marie Kondo thing and end up discovering that they all give me joy. I may do better if I don’t open the boxes and just haul them away.

The truth is, I will miss out. I can’t read all the books in my own house within my likely remaining years, let alone the new books that will come out in years ahead and all the wonderful books that have been published that I don’t have. The antidote to my FOMO, oddly enough, is coming to terms with my mortality. It means accepting that God may be all-knowing, but I never will be. One of the comforts of my faith in everlasting life will be the chance to keep learning in whatever form that might take.

Hopefully, this will make me wiser in the new books I acquire. I do find myself asking more often “will I really read that?” The pandemic has helped in limiting some of the sources of lots of cheap books like library book sales and used bookstores.

Where I’d like to get to, and haven’t yet, is to reach the point where I don’t look at those book stacks and feel, “I’ve got to read all those books!” (so now you know the shape of my OCD!). It may be that making some of the stacks disappear will help. Perhaps it is applying a principle of relationships with people to books: if you are thinking about any other book than the book you are with, you are not with any of your books. A spiritual lesson I’ve been learning is to be present in the present rather than somewhere else. When I fear missing out, I’m taking away from the enjoyment of the book I’m reading right now. Perhaps with the uncertainty of the present time, it is not a bad thing to live in “right now.” With the book I’m reading. In my comfortable chair. With a coffee at my side. In those moments, I’m not missing out at all.