I Hate Reading Books

I can barely keep my eyes on the page any more. Sometimes, instead of doing the reading, I imagine my own plot. Unfortunately, I only have one plot, which consists of the main character (me) drinking beer, and then having sex. Fun on its face, it soon gets old.

I used to love reading. Nothing else to do. This was before video games. But I don't play many video games any more, either. So I don't know what it is.

The last five books I've read, and finished, in reverse random order, are:

(1) Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty.
(2) Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
(3) Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim.
(4) The Economic Laws of Scientific Research by Terence Kealey.
(5) Fool by Christopher Moore.

Okay, actually I enjoyed reading the libertarian stuff, (1), (2), and I guess (4). I now have lots of new stuff to think about, but even while reading those I found myself reading the same sentences over and over and wondering if the Nuggets were going to re-sign Birdman Anderson (they did, woohoo).

Das Boot was good enough (see here) I guess, but I had to re-find that part of myself that thinks prose can be pretty in order to deal with like 100 pages of the mother of all storms. The prose was pretty.

Fool was okay, but not as good as Moore's* other stuff. Retelling King Lear was neat, from the point of view of someone who is unlikely to ever read King Lear, mainly because I think everything is downhill after Hamlet and Tempest. I mean, maybe after a while turn in your quill and retire?

*I have a frightening and amusing anecdote about Christopher Moore. Those allergic to amusing anecdotes should scroll down a couple of paragraphs. In 2007, Moore was at Books, Inc., in Mountain View, California,** just a skip away from me, part of a tour I guess for the release of his You Suck, which was swell, but as a sequel not nearly as good as Bloodsucking Fiends.*** We were required by the management to purchase hard-cover books for Moore to sign. He signed our paperbacks, anyway. Then I lent my signed Bloodsucking Fiends to my friend David, who lost it somewhere in the vicinity of Poland. He then wrote to Moore (okay, this is all a little stupid, since they both live in San Francisco, probably in the same stupid block) and asked for a resigned copy with a suitably David-denigrating enscription. What a nice guy is Christopher Moore. In the end, we all went out for ice cream.

**Yes, a footnote footnote. (Screw you, Terry Pratchett.) As an ethnic Montanan, I find it offensive that someone once thought that was a mountain.

***Ahem. It's possible that Bloodsucking Fiends was boring, too, but I read it back when I didn't hate reading books.

Anyway, so now I hate reading books. I'd rather read the snide comments people make in the comment threads of blogs, usually about socialized medicine and how Obama doesn't remind anyone, at all, of Bush (I can't tell the difference: all statists look the same to me nowadays). I'd even rather watch TV than read books, and I hate TV, too.

Maybe I should get someone to massage my feet when I read books? On second thought, that could be extremely distracting.