Sep
16
2007
“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” P.J. O’Rourke
This is a different way to think about what we ought to read. One of my favorite philosophical questions is “how ought we to live?” and “what ought we to read?” seems to fit into it quite nicely.
After all, there is only so much time and there are so many books. Maybe, instead of thinking about what books will make us look good, we should think about what books will make us good.
What I mean is we should be reading books that can make us better people. I posted a list of book qualities in my Polliwog Journal. I do think it’s possible that books can “make” us better.
I am about to read Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone. It is his story of being forced to be a child soldier in Sierra Leone. The book jacket implies there are lessons to be learned. I can only imagine that I will emerge from the experience knowing more what true courage is. A book can teach me this.
We may think we live in isolated times, each person in his own digital universe via a cell phone or an iPod, but the truth is we live in a world that is growing smaller and smaller every day.
The lessons we need to learn are not only about courage and love and strength but also about what it means to be a person living in fear, in poverty, in war. As an American, I do not fear for my life as I head to work each day, but I live in the same world with those who do. I breathe the same air as they do. We have recycled each others’ breaths.
To be a citizen of my universe, I need to know what I cannot know from my own experiences. I cannot learn what I need to know from the news or from TV. But books can teach me.
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