Book reading

In our multi-tasking, agenda-driven environment, with its flood of audiovisual entertainment, taking time to sit down and read a book seems almost slothful. Books are read while commuting on trains, on a long flight, or in bed before you turn out the light to sleep.

I don't read enough. I spend all day on the computer and my eyes are tired at night. After dinner, it seems so much simpler to park myself in front of the TV and watch a program, any old program, or something I've recorded, or a new DVD from Netflix, or now some streaming video from Netflix, say a wildly popular British TV series.

We have friends who watch much less TV than we do and they get more books read. I think sometimes film can bring you many of the same rewards that a good book will do, and in such a vivid and stimulating way. But most of what's on television, including those British series, is really just a waste of time.

I do try now to take some time after work and before dinner to sit down and read.
On the weekend, there are errands, dinners, a great outdoors beckoning on a nice day, and it takes some discipline to steal a couple of hours to sit down and read a book.

Who knows, maybe blogging will give me an added incentive to expand that reading time (in short, put reading into my agenda-driven life!).