![\"img_2661.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/img_2661.jpg\")
<\/a>\n Fig. #37. Perspective matters. A trend-setting look of aging shingles or a pockmarked example of unprimered paint? <\/strong><\/p>\n
Frame of reference, perspective — okay, bias — is rarely mentioned but important, if \u201ccocooning\u201d kicks in. Cocooning, well \u201cviewer cocooning, \u201cPeter Boyer explains in an article about Keith Olberman, (The NYer, 6-23-08<\/strong>) is \u201cthe inclination to seek out programming that reinforces one\u2019s firmly held political views.\u201d It\u2019s a way to sort through the all-information, all-day lives that we live, and I am going to infer that he also means \u201creader cocooning\u201d or choosing to read books with have an agreeable frame of reference. So it is that I chose not to buy Brad Meltzer\u2019s best selling paperback last year when I read Rush Limbaugh\u2019s name in the \u201cAcknowledgements.\u201d (I can\u2019t remember the book\u2019s title.) But I keep a Vince Flynn<\/strong> CIA thriller on the shelves, currently Separation of Powers<\/strong><\/em>, even though on a trip to my winter home in Minnesota, George W. told him how much he liked his books. That is a Flynn-minus. But Vince Flynn teaches in Minnesota, and I love Minnesota, so that is a Flynn-plus. The tie-breaker-plus is knowing that a former student of mine was a friend of Vince Flynn\u2019s brother, and he liked the brother. I always trust my former students. I\u2019ve sold Larry Beinhart\u2019s The Librarian <\/em><\/strong>(not Larry David, Jerry; sorry) and Anonymous\u2019 Primary Colors<\/em><\/strong>, but they seem dated this year, so no reorder.<\/p>\n Reader cocooning is interesting, said the Minnesotan neutrally. How about webcam<\/a> cocooning?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Deciding which book to read next is tricky and very personal. Liked author, known protagonist, intriguing subject or angle, new evidence, significant locale, bleak, hopeful, wordy, sparse, thin or fat, — the possible tipping points are many and varied. Fig. … Continue reading