My reading List

I have a problem. But I am honest about it. I like reading luridly covered books. Soppy love stories, impossible detective tales. And these days I prefer them to “improving literature”.

It will happen again and again. More so when there is a lot of mentally exhausting work of the SPSS factor loading sort. Work that involves understanding that exclusive “p” and normal curves( which are so rare that wonders if not it need be called the abnormal curve.)

Yes I like reading popular fiction. And ( here you wll gasp and shudder with horror) this is a serious confession to make, I actually put away a Toni Morrison to by a Ken Follett. Which I read with all the gusto of devouring a large Cadbury’s Irish Cream chocolate. Two times. And then some old Agatha Christie( but hey something written about a 100 years ago is classic, right?) And went on to another Ken Follett. But in my defense, it was not a spy chase but a historical novel( please may I be reinstated in a serious reader’s club? Ok as a member on probation.)

In my defense I do not read soppy love stories. Not because I o not like them, cannot find them, but because they are vapidly boring. If there is no murder( or in lucky cases two) by page 30, I put the book away. You know, nothing like a serial killer to keep the interest alive. Ideally lurid novels , even romantic novels must include a killer- keeps the fictional character population down, gives the protagonists something to talk about when they are not using their mouths for other purposes and keeps some degree of respectability in terms of cerebral engagement in the book alive.

And of course for serious mind improvement there is Wikipedia. ( shudder, gasp, collective passing out of the genteel public) Info-surfing… one topic to another, Adolph Hitler to green cheese is very entertaining and informative. And it gives me the satisfaction of having done something USEFUL( why this obsession with the utility of spending time, I wonder) Anyhows that is what I am “reading” in addition of course to a scattering of Organization Theory literature- Lawrence and Lorsch or Mintzberg- and trust me, with those savants as part of a reading list, even scanning sales coupons and GAP offers is an intellectual feat.