Bookworm

I think I may have mentioned a time or two that I like to read, and I read a lot.  I read for pleasure.  I read for information.  I read for escape.

One of many overflowing bookshelves in my house.  It would be worse, but now I use the Kindle app.

I really enjoy reading history books, but I've noticed something kind of odd about the changing way that historians are writing.  I read a very good book called Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul:  Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John Barry.  Another good one was The Fall of Anne Boleyn:  A Countdown by Claire Ridgway.  Both of these were well written books that I really enjoyed reading.  But I remember thinking it was a bit too obvious how much the authors liked and admired their subjects, to the detriment of others players during the time.  There's nothing wrong with having an affinity for one's subject, but whenever there was an historical disagreement or conflict, the authors always assumed their subject was in the right and the other player was in the wrong.  It just didn't seem terribly objective.

Then I read another book called Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie.  While he also clearly liked the last Russian Tsar and his wife, he could be more objective about them as people and didn't always just assume that they were in the right.  He was in fact pretty realistic about Alexandra's eccentricities.    Then I realized that the latter book was originally published in 1967, while the first two books were published in 2012.  So then I started wondering:  Are we slipping in our requirements of objectivity in reporting/writing in general?  Maybe not, but sometimes it feels that way.

Then today I saw an article on NPR to which I did not have a very positive reaction.  Engineers at MIT have created a book that you "wear" so you can experience physical stimuli to match the protagonist's emotional state.  It's kind of an interesting idea, but I don't think it's something I'd ever be interested in.  A big part of the appeal of a book over a movie is that every experience is what I create.  I don't think I like the idea of someone else figuring out what I should imagine or experience.  I want to have my own physical reaction and create my own pictures in my head.  Of course now I sound like a cranky old person opposed to technology.   But my husband thinks it sounds interesting, so maybe it's just me; but then he doesn't like to read quite as much as I do.