I'm Still Not A Very Good White

So This Is Supposed To Be About The How, And When, And Why, And What Of Reading -- About The Way That, When Reading Is Going Well, One Book Leads To Another And To Another, A Paper Trail Of Theme And Meaning; And How, When It's Going Badly, When Books Don't Stick Or Take, When Your Mood And The Mood Of The Book Are Fighting Like Cats, You'd Rather Do Anything But Attempt The Next Paragraph, Or Reread The Last One For The Tenth Time.

Hey, Great Idea: If You Have Kids, Give Your Partner Reading Vouchers Next Christmas. Each Voucher Entitles The Bearer To Two Hours' Reading Time *while The Kids Are Awake*. It Might Look Like A Cheapskate Present, But Parents Will Appreciate That It Costs More In Real Terms Than A Lamborghini.

Loving People, And Allowing Yourself To Be Loved, Was Only Worth The Risk If The Odds Were In Your Favor, But They Quite Clearly Weren't. There Were About Seventy-nine Squillion People In The World, And If You Were Very Lucky, You Would End Up Being Loved By Fifteen Or Twenty Of Them. So How Smart Did You Have To Be To Work Out That It Just Wasn't Worth The Risk?

I've Committed To Nothing...and That's Just Suicide...by Tiny, Tiny Increments.

He Loved Nirvana, But At His Age They Were Kind Of A Guilty Pleasure. All That Rage And Pain And Self-hatred! Will Got A Bit...fed Up Sometimes, But He Couldn't Pretend It Was Anything Stronger Than That. So Now He Used Loud Angry Rock Music As A Replacement For Real Feelings, Rather Than As An Expression Of Them, And He Didn't Even Mind Very Much. What Good Were Real Feelings Anyway?