For the second consecutive month, my book group is reading a title I would never read on my own. This time it’s a modern romance; last month it was a lurid murder story. Both books are by best-selling authors.
The member who chose the murder story said she wanted a quick read during the busy holiday season. I don’t know the motivation of the person who chose the romance, but I would bet she had a similar reason. Maybe a quick read, maybe something easy on the holiday-harried intellect.
I cannot identify with the impulse to choose a mindless read.
I remember the time a friend posted a request on Facebook asking for recommendations for an easy-going beach read for her vacation. The suggestions ran one extreme to the other, perhaps inadvertently because of me.
It started with the highbrow. She was a university employee, and many suggestions were made to impress her, I thought: heavy tomes that would be very difficult to tackle while lolling around on a sandy towel under the burning sun. I picked a Miami-based crime novel by a former journalist — not high literature by any stretch, but intelligently written and containing wry humor and some insights about the state of newspapers as voiced by the protagonist, a reporter whose career is on the downswing.
Apparently I lowered the bar way too much. On the heels of my proposed title came a suggestion for what was termed a “mindless” read. In fact, I suspected the word came in response to my title, as if to say, well, if we’re getting off our high horse to go there, then by all means let’s do mindless and call it what it is. I think the person suggested something on the order of these latest titles chosen by my book group.
But I take issue with mindless reading — the practice and the attitude behind it.
As a reader, I choose how much of myself to put into a book. If I’m busy or distracted or time-constrained, I might read it lightly — sort of intellectually skimming the text — but I can also choose at any time to give the book my full, deep attention. I might mark up the margins with notes, I might read a passage out loud to my husband, I might write a reflection or two in my journal. I don’t have to do any of this, but I can, because I choose books that give me something in exchange for my time.
I don’t want the book to decide for me how deeply I should read. That’s what these murder stories and romances do: They are the equivalent of bad TV, mind-numbing pabulum that serves only to kill time.
If I want to kill time, I can turn on the TV. If I want to invest my time in a book, it’s not to numb my mind. In fact, I turn to books when I feel my mind going numb watching TV. The books I choose wake me up. I read to make myself feel or think something. If a book is too much like TV, I’ll turn to a better book!
Wanda Freeman 