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Eclectic reader? Adventurous reader? Snobbish reader?

I’ve been called all those things by people who aren’t readers. Because to me, a person is either a reader or they’re not.

I classify books as “great books” and “dreck.” Period. I don’t even pay attention to the genre, because I don’t care. A good book deserves to be read, especially when we are served up so many not-good-books and told to love them. (The Goldfinch, anyone?)Continue Reading

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In the American South, people structure their entire existences around college football. It’s like going to mass. Every weekend there’s a home game, people climb into their mascot-themed vehicles, drive hours in traffic, spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a buffet that would rival a royal marriage reception, and generally cannot be relied upon to do anything other than worship at the Altar of Football.Continue Reading

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If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. – Haruki Murakami

Maybe Murakami’s quote applies to everything. Perhaps I’ll out myself as a hopeless snob. If I lose a few readers or start a debate, GREAT. I’m typing what I have to say, because I can’t sit on it any longer.

I am sick of the simpering sameness that permeates all creative forms today. From the same few music acts whose auto-tuned voices are beamed at me everywhere I turn/click/read to our dismal summer movie offerings to ‘must read’ book lists that are all composed of the same PR’d-to-death tomes, I am an isolated, dejected weirdo who must not like anything popular or socially accepted.

What bothers me about this isn’t that social media seems to have turned our entire society into a herd of sheep, or that I feel like I have been sent on an endless trip back to high school where nobody ever graduates, grows up or evolves. No. I can deal with those things.
It bothers me to see myself becoming what I despise. Continue Reading