{"id":839,"date":"2006-02-09T09:30:17","date_gmt":"2006-02-09T14:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/good-bad-books\/"},"modified":"2007-09-11T04:47:17","modified_gmt":"2007-09-11T09:47:17","slug":"good-bad-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/good-bad-books","title":{"rendered":"Good Bad Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I met up with a buddy from my freshman year of college. Over a bunch of drinks, he said to me, “Y’know, you gave me a list of books back when we were at Tulane, and I still have a stack of them sitting on my desk. But I’m gonna get through ’em someday.”<\/p>\n

I blanched. “Oh, God. Paul, please just throw them out. I don’t know what books they are, but I can just about guarantee that you should toss ’em. Just please<\/em> don’t tell me what books they are. I’ll even give you a new bunch of books to replace them.”<\/p>\n

I’m pretty embarrassed by whatever<\/em> I recommended when I was 18 (books, music, movies, etc.), but I’m shameless enough that I’m willing to include that roster in the list of all the books I’ve finished since 1989<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In that vein, ourgirlinchicago has a nice post about selecting what to read next<\/a>. She wrote previously about calculating the number of books she could expect to finish reading based on the average lifespan, which was pretty depressing in and of itself. Now she wonders what proportion of those books should be devoted to fluff:<\/p>\n

[W]hat percentage of that terribly finite amount of reading do you feel should be earmarked for incontestably Great books, and what percentage of fluff — elegant, witty, and delightful fluff, needless to say — are you comfortable including? I’m thinking a full 50%. But I have another wrench to throw into the machinery: how many of your 200 or 500 or 1,000 books will be books you’ve already read? For most of us, I’m guessing, this will be a non-negligible number.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a>, but get back to me about this question of hers. Since my list of books is in spreadsheet format, it’s quite easy to put a check-box next to every book that we consider fluff. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I met up with a buddy from my freshman year of college. Over a bunch of drinks, he said to me, “Y’know, you gave me a list of books back when we were at Tulane, and I still have a stack of them sitting on my desk. But I’m gonna get … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Good Bad Books”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-dx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3354,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-forum","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":0},"title":"0-forum?","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a small press book publisher, I was put on the Comp list at Bookforum. Despite not having published a book since 2003 and closing down the company in 2004, I've remained on the freebie list. The new issue arrived last week, on the heels of my 0-fer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12757,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/my-books-of-the-decade-2010-2019","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":1},"title":"My Books of the Decade: 2010-2019","author":"Gil","date":"December 24, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Alphabetical by author: I Will Be Complete: A Memoir - Glen David Gold (podcast) Essays After Eighty - Donald Hall A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety - Donald Hall James Merrill: Life and Art - Langdon Hammer (podcast) The Witch of Lime Street: S\u00e9ance, Seduction, and Houdini in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1567.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1567.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1567.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_1567.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3519,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/kindleicious","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":2},"title":"Kindleicious","author":"Gil","date":"February 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"To celebrate the arrival of my new Kindle (I sold my first-gen model for $270 on Amazon last week), here are a bunch of articles about e-book pricing and why publishers are scared crapless by the example of Apple and iTunes: Kassia Kroszer, who writes wonderfully about this stuff on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12769,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-355-the-guest-list-2019","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":3},"title":"Episode 355 – The Guest List 2019","author":"Gil","date":"December 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: The Guest List 2019 It's time for our year-end Virtual Memories Show tradition: The Guest List! I reached out to 2019's pod-guests and asked them about the favorite book(s) they read in the past year, as well as the books or authors they're hoping to read in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3604.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3604.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3604.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3604.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_3604.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14095,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-412-the-guest-list-2020","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":4},"title":"Episode 412 – The Guest List 2020","author":"Gil","date":"December 13, 2020","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: The Guest List 2020 It's time for our year-end Virtual Memories Show tradition: The Guest List! I reached out to 2020's pod-guests and asked them about the favorite book(s) they read in the past year, as well as the books or authors they're hoping to read in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020books-scaled.jpeg?fit=1029%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020books-scaled.jpeg?fit=1029%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020books-scaled.jpeg?fit=1029%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020books-scaled.jpeg?fit=1029%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1627,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/miss-thing","url_meta":{"origin":839,"position":5},"title":"Miss Thing","author":"Gil","date":"August 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I noticed in college that the more books I had in my dorm room, the fewer questions visitors would ask me about literature. So, in the never-ending quest to cover up my intellectual inadequacies, I keep lots and lots of books around. Since I get far fewer visitors at home\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}