How should one go about finding new books and authors to read? Literary reviewers? Blogs? Those websites that match you up with a good read, eHarmony style? Ambling about Tisch and choosing stuff arbitrarily?
I'd recommend initially using online critical resources, many of which can be found through major news organizations like NPR or The New York Times, to learn more about notable modern authors and books. From there, identify some of your favorite writers and delve deeper into their works. Use Goodreads.com and other online resources to find comparable authors.
Actually, you know what? Screw that.
Instead of just giving you some knuckle-headed basics about where to discover new books and how to free up some reading time in your hectic week, I'm going to issue you a challenge:
Friends, readers, random online creepers who inexplicably spend time reading columns in school newspapers, future employers and whoever else is actually reading this and not just skimming it to see if I've said anything incendiary and overdramatic about the Israel-Palestine campus discourse (what else is one looking for in the pages of the Daily?), I challenge you to go completely out of your comfort zone with the next book you pick up for pleasure reading.
I've always thought of reading as a means of exercising your imagination, and you can't get sufficient exercise by solely taking on the stair climber you love oh-so-dearly every single day. Maybe it's just because my high school experience was defined by both running cross-country and steadily discovering that I hated and was miserably untalented at all subjects unrelated to English, but I believe that the parallels of reading (and learning in general) and exercising are meaningful and inspiring. Think about it: You are striving to improve yourself for extended periods of (typically, but not always) solitary time, (usually, and preferably) on a routine. Both are acts of self-improvement that can frequently be enjoyable, meaningful and essential to one's identity, but can also, if not mostly, be tedious and frustrating, only serving to remind one of how much room there is left to improve. A reader/athlete can't just keep grinding away at the same left-arm bicep curl of Margaret Atwood and hope to reap all the benefits of the library/gymnasium. I hope that sort of made sense. It has been a long weekend.
You have the rest of your life to be comfortable. Spend some time each week reading stuff you disagree with or hate or find mysterious or utterly absurd. It doesn't compensate for actually going outside your comfort zone in a physical or otherwise more tangible way (a discussion for a different column series), but I genuinely believe that placing your mental self outside of its element can be just as vital to leading a fulfilling life.
Two books of the week this week:
1.) Logicomix: a fascinating graphic novel about a logician whose life narrative is defined by the twin thematic threads of madness and abstract mathematical logic. Not only is it an engaging and well-illustrated read, but it stands as a testament to the power of a well-told and imaginative narrative to make even the most dry subject material enamoring.
2.) Step one: Go to Tisch. Step two: Search your favorite author and novel, and head to that section of the Tisch dungeon. Step three: Pause right before picking up that joyous papery treasure chest of memories and literary wonder, and instead take two steps to your left. Take the first book you see, and check it out.
Kevin Criscione is a sopohomore majoring in English. He can be reached at Kevin.Criscione@tufts.edu
