This came in the mail this afternoon. I ordered it from the bookstore I go to here. It’s quite a presence in your hand. 751 pages. He wouldn’t make it burdensome though. He knew his voice could keep it in the air. Here’s the first paragraph of the preface: 

‘The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.’
               ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

THEY SAY THAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN READING MORE in these past months. 35% I’ve seen quoted. That would make sense. Imagine the people though, young people and older people, who can’t read well enough to get deep time with a book or a magazine or something that would mean something to them online. The TV would be going all day, and so would other screens with their quick restless information. Hour after hour. Since March. Or since always. We have failed in giving many citizens the most valuable tool.

‘When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.’ 

                                   ― Maya Angelou

In today’s Times, a review of Barack Obama’s brand new book, A Promised Land. It’s the first of two volumes. This first one is 768 pages. If you read his other books, you know he can write. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/books/review/barack-obama-a-promised-land.html?referringSource=articleShare

In college in the late 60s and when we got out and went to Vietnam or found alternative ways to serve we needed companions. Our parents weren’t in the way we needed. Most teachers weren’t. Music and magazines were big for us in that way. So was Kurt Vonnegut. Gallows Humor they called it. I saw him read once in Cleveland. I took my young oldest daughter. Here are reviews of Slaughterhouse Five from 1969:

https://bookmarks.reviews/the-first-reviews-of-slaughterhouse-five/

 

This is still waiting to be done. It didn’t happen under any president or administration.