New York Times Nostalgia


My parent’s brought down the Sunday New York Times with them and flipping through it, especially the Arts and Leisure section, is pure joy. I read my news online here, except for the occasional local paper, and on the whole I don’t think I miss anything.

I’m not even a die-hard print only kind of person, but it is a tactical pleasure to have the Arts section in my hands again. To be able to flip through it scanning the headlines. The type in neat ordered rows and the grainy color images punching it all up. I realized it is not merely the act of holding the paper instead of the computer that I like so much–I actually read differently.

I carefully pick and choose everything I read on the internet. This goes from blogs to news, so when I scan the NYT Arts section I only read what I think would be interesting after a 15 second consideration. Apparently that does not include much of what is in this Sunday edition, and perhaps to my detriment. It all looks quite interesting when I have a hard copy in front of me. Maybe if left to my own choices, it’s easier to focus in rather than branch out –not a great quality for learning more about the world around me.

Or maybe this is just nostalgia run riot speaking.

Reading Material

Beach reading is a class of reading unto itself. I’ve always enjoyed a gripping, easy novel. I discovered Stieg Larsson while I was here. However, having been here 3 weeks I can assure you I’ve read all of the good gripping stories and have moved on to second tier, wild, and badly written books. Tsar, above, falls into that category as do all the books that were left in our new apartment. So it is with great excitement that I announce today is library day! I am going to the public library in Phillipsburg to get a library card. Perhaps that doesn’t sound incredibly festive to you, but get a load of what was next on my list:


Dead After Dark contains four supernatural romance stories. The first one is about a woman hunting a werewolf, only to find herself hunted by the werewolf, only to find herself in love with the werewolf. I didn’t read on to see what the other stories were about.

I do have my trusty copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse with me, but it’s not exactly beach reading nor is it sturdy enough for the beach. So yes, it’s off to the library for me!

Books That Make You Dumb

A chart rating intelligence by reading preference based on actual, scientific evidence. Or at least a correlation between university SAT scores and favorite books listed on Facebook. Virgil Griffith has put together fun data sets for both books and music. Click on the image for a bigger, easier to read version.

Note: Deciding to read to Lolita after looking at this chart has not been proven to make you more intelligent. Sorry.