{I needed extra sleep last night and I got it. So, I'm back!}
My friend Will mentioned Marianne Wolf. She is the author of several books on reading. Not so much learning to read, but day-to-day reading as an adult.
We could confine our reading to TV subtitles and billboards (what's a billboard?) but many people have more fun reading about Donald what's-his-name or WWII or the Packers. Or heart-wrenching unreturned love.
I ran a course for teachers working on masters' degrees called Personal Reading for Professional Development. Of course, teachers want to be terrific examples to their students so they can be sensitive about having it known that they read "Lockerroom Lust" instead of "Moby Dick" or some other accredited masterpiece. Will and Marianne Wolf reminded me that adult life today is quite complex and varied. Much of the time, we have a clear and somewhat concise goal in mind:
How does the book end?
Friends have been talking about the hilarious chapter 5? What does it say?
My sister says that the murderess was Grandma. Let me see that.
Just as it is polite to refrain from discussing how much money one makes, it can be considered more civilized not to inquire too closely about others' reading.
Lynn and I recently agreed to read parts of a one-act play on Zoom in a reading that involved 7 or so readers. We got the book of one-act plays and went straight to the one we were to read aloud. We never read the first play in the book nor the last one. Did we read that book? We have a book of "Calvin and Hobbes", the cartoons. Does that book "count" as reading? I have read the Preamble to the US Constitution and a couple of the Amendments. I don't plan to read more of it. Am I a failure?
