Thursday, May 30, 2013

Don't Be a Nervous Reader!

I paid a visit to Chapters today, one of the better Dublin bookshops, in Parnell Street. I usually confine my browsing to the first floor, where the second-hand books are shelved. Today, though, I took a brief tour around the ground floor, and I was amused to see, in the children's books section, a shelf marked "Confident Readers".

Confident Readers! I've always wanted to be one of those, but the ambition continues to elude me. I always worry that I'm missing the author's point, that I won't retain anything that I've read, that my critical judgement is dreadful, and that maybe I shouldn't even be reading the book I'm reading in the first place.

Oh, to be a Confident Reader! I think there should be such a shelf for adults, as well as children. It could contain books like Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, the Cantos of Ezra Pound, and Finnegans Wake. I'm sure you can think of many others....

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