
What does it mean for a journalist today to be a Serious Reader? - frgtpsswrdlame
https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/serious-reader-adam-gopnik-new-yorker-tanehisi-coates-atlantic-rebecca-traister-jia-tolentino.php
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randcraw
It's curious that there's so little written about serious reading. Are
voracious omnivorous readers so rare? Or are they just too covert in this era
of overt public posturing?

~~~
pklausler
Need a serious reader be voracious or omnivorous?

I can think of a short list of books that would collectively qualify a reader
as serious.

~~~
andai
I'd like to see that list, please!

~~~
pklausler
OK. I'll define this as "10 books that I'd recommend to my 40-years-younger
self to prioritize", and leave aside the problem that 2 or 3 of these would
not yet have been published.

    
    
      The Iliad
      Shakespeare
      The Life of Johnson
      Federalist Papers
      Pride and Prejudice
      Ulysses
      The Waste Land
      The Selfish Gene
      The Making of the Atomic Bomb
      Infinite Jest

~~~
pklausler
12 hours later and I still want to put Herodotus in there but can't pick one
to replace with him. Sigh.

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cafard
I guess it's well that the conversation is going on. The novelist Larry
McMurtry used to run a used bookstore, Booked Up, in Georgetown. In a memoir
of his time in the the book trade, he remarked that he quickly perceived that
a) in Washington the true stars were the journalists, and that b) most of them
just didn't read. He named Joseph Alsop as an exception. Perhaps things have
since changed in DC. (McMurtry moved his operation to Archer City, Texas,
about twenty years ago, not from disappointment with the journalists but for
lower rent.)

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viridian
Funnily enough, this article is one of thousands of articles I have read which
are contributing to my own reading problem, as seems to be the case with many
of the Journalists quoted in the article. The massive size of the media, all
the angles and interpretations of all of the dizzying number of events has
began to suck me in like a trap, while Slaughterhouse Five sits mostly unread.
I think I'm slowly coming to the realization though that the news really isn't
all that valuable to me, and I read way too much of it, and far too few books.

~~~
ashark
> I think I'm slowly coming to the realization though that the news really
> isn't all that valuable to me, and I read way too much of it, and far too
> few books.

Keeping up with the news has about as much value as watching soap operas.
Maybe it's fun for you and that's fine, but the notion that it's making one a
better person or allowing one to contribute meaningfully to society is mostly
BS.

Blah, blah, informed electorate. Meanwhile most people have little or no grasp
of the basics of political philosophy and economics, the history of both, are
_terrible_ critical readers, know little about the actual structure and
functions of their government, and so on, so if your concern is being able to
evaluate policy so you can make better choices in the voting booth start with
those things. Which... means reading books and journals, not the newspaper or
Twitter or whatever.

Wading in day-to-day news is useless or harmful without that foundational
knowledge—again, except as shallow entertainment, which if that's what you're
into and you enjoy it that's _fine_ but don't subject yourself to it because
you think it's making your life or anyone else's better. Even _with_ a good
understanding of the relevant topics it's mostly a waste of time unless your
job is writing about it (as it is for some of the people in TFA).

~~~
kiliantics
I think good news should present current events in the context of such ideas,
with explanations for their implications in government or the economy. There
are plenty of media outlets that do this, with various biases of course. The
Jacobin for instance presents everything from a socialist perspective, where
the reader can understand issues and events in he context of a Marxist
analysus. Many of their contributors are well versed in the key works of this
academic tradition so the reader is spared from having to be as deeply
familiar with them in order to get the same level of insight into what the
news has to do with the economy and politics from such a perspective.

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cafard
Well, maybe. I'm not sure how much good it has done David Brooks.

