{"id":390,"date":"2010-02-21T16:08:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T21:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=390"},"modified":"2010-06-03T16:21:41","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T21:21:41","slug":"reader-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=390","title":{"rendered":"READER TALKS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of author interviews, I wish there were reader interviews. My favorite such exchange — and the only one I know of — is Scott Simon\u2019s occasional Saturday morning conversation with the London cabbie on NPR\u2019s Weekend Edition.<\/strong> All it takes is Scott\u2019s \u201cwhat are you reading?\u201d and the cabbie takes over with what book he\u2019s reading, where he found it, why he chose it, and what he thinks so far. I love it. A reader\u2019s choices may not be the only measure of a person that counts, but it\u2019s WAY up there.<\/p>\n

Maybe my favorite reader-commentater is Joe Queenan<\/strong>. He occasionally writes a \u201creader essay\u201d on the next to back page of the NYTBR<\/strong> . I remember especially one that a) argues for the importance of a book\u2019s cover in choosing which book to read, b) recalls suffering through Thomas Hardy\u2019s Return of the Native<\/strong> to satisfy school\u2019s summer book list and wonders if times have changed (Somewhat.), c) grouses about poorly chosen gift books, and d) argues for never passing up a book that looks good, even if you have twenty-six others started.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Fig.#77.<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>

Fig.#77. Settled in for a while yet. <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nina Sankovitch read a book a day for a year (Peter Appleborne, NYT 12\/20\/09<\/strong>), but she doesn\u2019t say why she chose the books she did.\u00a0 Charlie noted they must have been short, I figured they were not engaging, Pam thought she had time on her hands, and we are all waiting for the book to come out.\u00a0 In that spirit, may I recommend\u00a0 my favorite book about a reader reading: Sara Nelson\u2019s So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading<\/strong>.\u00a0 She chooses a book a week for a year for many, varied, and changeable reasons.\u00a0 Her choices are timely, serendipitous, and sometimes really wrong; but she tells you why she chose each book and if it works out.\u00a0 Roseledge Books will have this book next summer (she said, noting that it is out in paperback).\u00a0 Reader friend Kathy just gave me Murray Browne\u2019s The Book Shopper: A Life in Review<\/strong>, which she loved because she was part of his book choosing. I will let you know.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong> We are 70 days into at least 6\u201d of snow on the ground in Minnesota. I know it\u2019s time for Maine when I sit for three hours straight to inhale the occasional glimpse of the ocean during the PGA\u2019s Pebble Beach event. Sigh.<\/p>\n

Joe Queenan cites:
\na) \u201cWhen Bad Covers Happen to Good Books,\u201c (NYTBR 12\/6\/09)<\/strong>
\nb) \u201cSummer Bummer\u201d (NYTBR 6\/3\/07)<\/strong>
\nc) \u201cWish List: No More Books,\u201d (NYTBR 12\/25\/05)<\/strong> An aside: once the rant runs thin, think tax break and donate ineptly chosen\u00a0 gift books to the public library where the right reader will find it at the right time.
\nd) My personal search time limit of 10 minutes to find something I already know well enough ran out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of author interviews, I wish there were reader interviews. My favorite such exchange — and the only one I know of — is Scott Simon\u2019s occasional Saturday morning conversation with the London cabbie on NPR\u2019s Weekend Edition. All it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}