I like books. [...] I love films.

Books The Times has posted a list of what they think are the top 100 books of this decade. Here is a list of the items on their list that I've read:

50 No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein (2000)

You'd expect me to be embarassed about that perhaps, especially considering Karie's appetite for pages. But the number of books published each year, each week, and the evident bias against genre fiction (reflected by the choice of judges listed at the bottom of the page), it's a surprise I've even read Klein's book.

I've come to terms with that years ago. I like books. I like the smell of them, the way they feel in the hand. But I'm not a voracious reader. I can never seem to find the time. I love films. I watch lots and lots of films. That's my narrative form of choice. And theatre. I like the immediacy of them, and the compexity inherent in the collaboration, which still exists even with the most manipulative of directors.

That's probably why the books I do read tend to be autobiographical or analytical, with only a certain type of fiction. I also at present can't seem to be able to concentrate for longer than an hour on anything. Modern life, at least my modern life is noisy. But there is hope. Audiobooks. I've been buying lots of audiobooks. Abridged. Unabridged. Fiction. Non-fiction. And I'm hoping this halfway house will help to set me back on track.

2 comments:

Ben said...

What a strange list! I've managed 10 out of 50, but most of those ten I wouldn't rate (it seems that Karie agrees). Does this mean that the Guardian is being deliberately prevocative, or that the last 10 years have produced rather an insipid and pretentious selection of books?

Stuart Ian Burns said...

It's The Times's list actually I do think there is an element of being both deliberately provocative and critically mainstream. Good to see Bad Science on there though.