Do you have a lot of books in your home that you’ve never read? For my 74th birthday, almost everybody in my family gave me a book. Altogether (I did the math), I was given more than 3,000 pages to read.
I went through all the books in my house and there were hundreds on the shelves. I calculated that I have read about half of them cover to cover and skimmed about a fourth of them. That leaves many that I have never even looked at. Where did they come from? Did I buy them? Were they gifts? Who have I insulted by not reading them?
I have one book called William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life. My friend Bob gave me this monstrosity last year for Christmas, so I felt I had to plow through it or I’d appear ungrateful. And I couldn’t claim I had no time to read it because it was in the middle of COVID and, quite frankly, I had nothing else to do.
So, I endured it…all 784 pages. Then a couple of weeks later I was on a Zoom meeting with my church book club. I got pretty puffed up about my recent accomplishment and dropped the name of that 4-pound opus I had completed.
“Wow, Dick,” said a friend, “that’s quite a hefty read. I’m impressed. Was he the Civil War general who had six wives and 13 children?”
Was he? How could I not remember? Why did I even bother reading that biography? Next time Bob burdens me with an obligation like that, whenever he drops by I’ll just keep moving the bookmark forward. He’ll never know the difference.
I’m drawn mostly to non-fiction, which is all about getting information I can use to try to look smart when I am out with my snooty friends. But since I don’t recall most of what I’ve read, I’m wondering what the point is. This past month, I read a fascinating book by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson called Cosmic Queries. I enjoyed his stories. For example, I never knew how they first determined the speed of light. But now if someone would ask me how they figured it was 186,000 miles per second, I’d have to say, “I knew that once, like for about 20 minutes, last week. Not anymore.”
Years ago, I read “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. I couldn’t put the book down, but the day after I finished it, I remembered the history of nearly nothing.
My wife is into fiction, which gets her a lot of free passes. She’ll say to a friend, “I just finished a great story, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing,’” and the most probing question she’ll hear is: “Oh, did you like it?” Occasionally someone will ask what it’s about and all she has to say is: “I don’t want to ruin it for you.” That’s the end of the conversation.
I’ve written several books. You may have one of them sitting around your house that you have never looked at. Don’t worry: if we ever run into each other, I won’t question you about it. Honestly, I don’t even remember what I wrote.
