What Should I Read Next?

“I cannot live without books.”  Thomas Jefferson wrote that.  It is unclear how he tested that hypothesis.  I have a little plaque-like thing (a plaqueoid? plaquoid?) in my office, given to me as a gift from my mother, which has that quotation on it.  I am not sure how I feel about it (the plaque-like thing).  In one way, it reminds me that I like books.  But, at the same time, it reminds me that Jefferson read a lot of books, and so maybe I should read more books, because compared to the amount I think he read, I don’t read very much at all.

Then again (self-justification for bad behavior alert), Jefferson didn’t have the internet.  In the alternate universe in which the internet does not exist, how many more books do I read per year?  It is undoubtedly not a trivial sum.  And if you think of the other alternative universe in which not only does the internet not exist, but neither does television, I suspect my current reading habits are embarrassingly slight.

I want to think I would like to live in that world in which I read more than I do.  But, then again, if I really wanted to live in that world, I could just not use any computing devices or video devices and thereby live in a facsimile of that world.  I don’t do so.  Insert axiom of revealed preference.

All of these thoughts (and, truthfully, angst) were prompted when I reread Books and the Founding Fathers by George Nash.  It’s a slim book (60 pages).  I read it when it came out, and (full disclosure) I talked with George about it when he was giving the lecture which comprises the bulk of the book, so I knew the contents even before I read it the first time.  But, I reread it because of a conversation I had a few weeks back about putting together a reading list of the books the Founding Fathers would have read and been thinking about when composing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  I knew the answer was in this slim volume with the title connecting Books and Founding Fathers.  When I reread it, I was depressed.  You can’t put together a reading list of what the Founding Fathers read.  They read…everything.  They were incredibly well read.  I spent the whole book thinking that I should really read more than I do.  I haven’t read the complete works of Cicero.  I’ve never even started Blackstone’s Commentaries.  And I am truly ashamed to acknowledge (so ashamed I almost didn’t even write this sentence) (Really, I was going to not write this sentence I am so ashamed)…I have never read…this is hard to admit in print (I am not joking)…I have never read Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws.  (There I said it.) (Maybe admitting that in public will get me to actually read it sometime soon.  (First step: Admit you have a problem.))  I haven’t read it because, well, I haven’t convinced myself I will find it inspiring.  But, it inspired Jefferson and Madison and Adams and Hamilton  and that whole crew and so shouldn’t it inspire me too?  Of course it should. It probably will.  I haven’t read the complete works of any the Founding Fathers, either. Just sticking to the realm of political philosophy, it is truly overwhelming to make a list of all the books I haven’t read.  But, the Founding Fathers read those books.  So, why shouldn’t I?

And that is just political philosophy.  It is far too overwhelming to conduct the same experiment on other branches of knowledge.  Indeed, it causes me acute pain to realize I don’t think there is any branch of knowledge that I can honestly say I could not quickly make a list of a dozen books I have not read that it really pains me to admit I haven’t read.  (And, yes, that even includes Economics.)

I’d like to be Well Read.  But, how much reading does one need to do in the Modern Age to be Truly Well Read?  I mean it is pretty obvious to me that I have read more than many people I meet, but is that the right comparison?  Reading something like Books and the Founding Fathers makes me think I have probably read a lot less than Thomas Jefferson had read.  And I am not even sure where Jefferson fits in the Well Read category.  Samuel Johnson probably read even more than Jefferson.  Thomas Aquinas?  Dante?  Now those guys are well read.  Me?  Not even in that league.

(And, lest anyone be prompted to tell me I am Well Read in some misguided charitable attempt to make me feel better about myself, I will preemptively say, “Don’t be Silly.”  This I know: I have read enough to know that I am not Well Read.)

I run into a related problem.  To be Well Read, how wide does one’s reading need to be?  Can one be considered Well Read if one has never read a novel or a work of political philosophy or a book on the natural sciences?  Surely having read the complete works of Aristotle and nothing else does not constitute Well Read.  But, how does it work?  If I have read some but not all of Aristotle, can I still be Well Read?  How much does one have to know about Chinese history to be Well Read?  How many comic books does one have to read to be Well Read?  And if the answer to that last question is zero, are there other categories that do not count for becoming Well Read?  Does one Jane Austen novel count for more than the Complete Works of Alan Moore in the quest to become Well Read?

I am legitimately troubled by this.  Suppose I made it my personal quest that in the next 10 years I will go from my present state to the state of being Well Read.  What do I need to spend the next 10 years reading?  Is it even possible to get there?  The possibility that the answer to that last question is “No” is quite depressing.  So, let’s drop it from consideration.  (If you pretend a possibility is impossible, then it is, by definition impossible.  Right?)  If I want to be Well Read, how should I choose my books?  Was it OK that I reread Books and the Founding Fathers or should I have spent the time reading books written by the Founding Fathers?  Was the time I spent over the weekend reading an Agatha Christie novel an aid in advancing toward my goal or did it not advance me toward the status of being Well Read?

Curiously, this blog makes me feel better about my reading.  While writing meaningless reflections of no interest to anyone about books seems to bear little resemblance to becoming Well Read, I find that pausing after a book to actively ponder it is enormously useful.  To go from passively pondering a book to actively asking “What was it about this book that was most striking?” makes the book come alive in a whole new way.  It took a long hiatus from doing this to make me realize that something was lost when I stopped doing it—I read a lot of books in that time, and some of them were memorable to be sure, but there are whole books I realize that I read but nothing about them jumps to mind.  To be Well Read surely means more than just having turned the pages of a book, it surely means to be able to recall how said book changed your thoughts.  And therein lies the utility of this here blog.  And, yes, simply typing this up and not broadcasting it to the world could theoretically serve the same purpose, but the act of thinking that someone, somewhere might read it, induces a degree of deliberateness to the reflections.  None of which explains why you, Dear Hypothetical Reader, would bother to read these ruminations.

On a related note, does listening to songs about books help make you Well Read?