{"id":1332,"date":"2012-03-27T03:37:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T03:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/?p=1332"},"modified":"2013-05-08T01:21:25","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T01:21:25","slug":"tweexcore-theatlantic-a-slow-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/?p=1332","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style>\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-1332 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/?attachment_id=1333'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/tumblr_m1hyj77Ph51qcokc4o1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/tweexcore.tumblr.com\/post\/19989589058\/theatlantic-a-slow-books-manifesto-read-books\" target=\"_blank\">tweexcore<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/theatlantic.tumblr.com\/post\/19954313979\/a-slow-books-manifesto-read-books-as-often-as\" target=\"_blank\">theatlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2012\/03\/a-slow-books-manifesto\/254884\/\" target=\"_blank\">A Slow Books Manifesto:\u00a0Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Why so much emphasis on what goes into our mouths, and so little on what goes into our minds? What about having fun while exerting greater control over what goes into your brain? Why hasn\u2019t a hip alliance emerged that\u2019s concerned about what happens to our intellectual health, our country, and, yes, our happiness when we consume empty-calorie entertainment? The Slow Food manifesto lauds \u201cquieter pleasures\u201d as a means of opposing \u201cthe universal folly of Fast Life\u201d\u2014yet there\u2019s little that seems more foolish, loudly unpleasant, and universal than the screens that blare in every corner of America (at the airport, at the gym, in the elevator, in our hands). \u201cFast\u201d entertainment, consumed mindlessly as we slump on the couch or do our morning commute, pickles our brains\u2014and our souls.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I\u2019m calling for a Slow Books Movement\u00a0<span>(one that\u2019s a little more developed than\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/slowbookmovement.com\/books_1.html\" target=\"_blank\">this perfectly admirable attempt<\/a><span>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In our leisure moments, whenever we have down time, we should turn to literature\u2014to works that took some time to write and will take some time to read, but will also stay with us longer than anything else. They\u2019ll help us unwind better than any electronic device\u2014and they\u2019ll pleasurably sharpen our minds and identities, too.<\/p>\n<p>To borrow a cadence from Michael Pollan: Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics.<\/p>\n<p>Aim for 30 minutes a day. You can squeeze in that half hour pretty easily if only, during your free moments\u2014whenever you find yourself automatically switching on that boob tube, or firing up your laptop to check your favorite site, or scanning Twitter for something to pass the time\u2014you pick up a meaningful work of literature. [\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re not reading slowly, you\u2019re doing yourself\u2014and your community\u2014a great wrong. As poet Joseph Brodsky said in his 1987 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, \u201cThough we can condemn \u2026 the persecution of writers, acts of censorship, the burning of books, we are powerless when it comes to [the worst crime against literature]: that of not reading the books. For that \u2026 a person pays with his whole life; \u2026 a nation \u2026 pays with its history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2012\/03\/a-slow-books-manifesto\/254884\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more.<\/a><\/strong> <em>[Image: Reuters]<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>You know something? As lovely as this sounds in theory. As catchy as that motto is. No.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Let me tell you about classics, long, thousand page novels, spiraling stories about love and betrayal and society and repression. I can tell you about them because I\u2019ve read lots and lots and lots of them. Name one and I\u2019ve probably read it. If I haven\u2019t, I probably will. But I didn\u2019t love all of them. I didn\u2019t even like quite a few of them, and fewer still have changed my life or bettered my person.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The books that stayed with me and that I value reading are the ones that make me feel something, the ones that make me, if only momentarily, escape to a different sort of life. Sometimes it\u2019s short stories. Sometimes it\u2019s old and sometimes it\u2019s contemporary and sometimes it\u2019s something in between. It\u2019s Richard Yates\u2019s trembling middle class suburbia. It\u2019s Colette\u2019s free spirit and petulant eroticism. It\u2019s David Wojnarowicz\u2019s rage and desperation, which you will never, ever find in an English Literature curriculum. It\u2019s stories about sex and seemingly unremarkable people\u2019s extraordinary moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And you know something? I read them fast, on subways, in between places, for moments at a time. Or I read them for hours in bed with a cup of tea. It doesn\u2019t matter\u2014reading isn\u2019t something to be ritualized, fetishized, it\u2019s something you do for the pure joy of it. And sometimes it isn\u2019t books. It\u2019s essays, blog posts, even heart breaking 140 characters or less, tweets.<\/p>\n<p>So: Read. When you want to. Mostly good books. But always ones that make you feel, think, and long to be alive. Not to keep the canon of 100 greatest books of all time alive, but to know, to remember, that you\u2019re human, that you feel\u2014that you\u2019re not alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>YES YES YES YES YES<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>tweexcore: theatlantic: A Slow Books Manifesto:\u00a0Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics. Why so much emphasis on what goes into our mouths, and so little on what goes into our minds? What about having fun while exerting greater control over what goes into your brain? Why hasn\u2019t a hip alliance emerged that\u2019s concerned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1056,362,1055,716,556,667,555,1057],"class_list":["post-1332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agree","tag-books","tag-fast","tag-feelings","tag-lit","tag-literature","tag-reading","tag-yes","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1334,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1332\/revisions\/1334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmblr.kamilah.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}