A tree of immense girth grows from a tufted shoot; a terrace of nine levels rises from a clump of soil; a journey of a thousand miles begins under the first tread.
--Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 64
[Home | Current | Archive | Index | Exposition | Links]
I've read a lot of books over the years; one of the real pities is that I've forgotten so many of them. Granted, many of them deserve to be forgotten, but many more of them don't. And it's surely not a bad idea to keep some record even of those splashing around the shallow end of the quality pool, if only so that I can discourse usefully on how bad they are. When I was in grad school a few years ago, I started a list of books I'd read, which was nice but had a couple problems; first, it was just title and author, no further commentary or information, and second, I abandoned the practice somewhere along the line.
Fast forward a few years, the internet has exploded into the consciousness of the masses, and everyone and his little sister has a personal web page. A few friends are starting to put book reviews and recommendations up on web pages. "Hmm, really good idea," I think. But writing big ol' gnarly thoughtful reviews takes time and effort, and hence, in spite of a surfeit of good intentions, I never got around to doing the same.
Then, a few months ago, Kate Nepveu (one of the aforementioned friends) and Chad Orzel started their book logs--listings of the books they'd just read with brief comments about their thoughts and reactions on each. Other friends followed suit not long after, and now I'm thinking, "hmm, guess it's time to get off my butt and get with the program."
There's some obvious benefits to doing a book log. It provides a record of what I've read. It spurs me to focus more closely on what I'm reading, to think more critically about it so I can have something useful to say. And having other logs out there to read addresses, at least in a minute sort of way, one of the great sorrows of the world: there's a ton of fine books out there that I'm either unaware of or, for whatever reason, am never going to get around to reading myself. Hearing of those books through others whose judgement I trust either leads me to new material or informs me, albeit briefly, of things that I might not read myself but am still interested in learning a little bit about. Starting my own log is a way of contributing to the overall pool; whether it's a valuable contribution remains to be seen.
What's with the name The Tufted Shoot? How is that relevant to anything? Well, I hope it's clear that the Dao De Jing quote from which my book log name is taken highlights the fact that many an impressive harvest or result comes from a small, humble beginning. I've read a few books in my life, but I've always had the feeling that whatever I've read pales into insignificance compared to the huge amount that I haven't read. Yeah, I read for enjoyment and entertainment, but I read for education and enlightenment, too, and I keep plugging along in thrall to the pleasant delusion that on some far distant day, I might just look around and discern that my wee bit of knowledge has grown into something more impressive. Or something like that....