Sunday Salon: A Slow-Book Manifesto

Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics.

Thank you, Maura Kelly. We've all eagerly embraced the Slow Food movement. We've tried Slow Travel. We've taken on Slow Money and Slow Schools. But it is you, Maura Kelly, who have challenged us to attempt the most important slow movement of them all, Slow Books. 

As you write:  

"I'm all for efforts like these. But why so much emphasis on what goes into our mouths, and so little on what goes into our minds? What about having fun while exerting greater control over what goes into your brain? Why hasn't a hip alliance emerged that's concerned about what happens to our intellectual health, our country, and, yes, our happiness when we consume empty-calorie entertainment?"

Maura, you have given us three important reasons to slow-book:

(1) "Because literary books are so mentally invigorating, and require such engagement, they make us smarter than other kinds of reading material, as a 2009 University of Santa Barbara study indicated."   (2) 'Research by Canadian psychologists Keith Oatley and Raymond Mar suggests that reading fiction even hones our social skills, as Paul notes. "Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported ... that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them, and see the world from their perspective," she writes.'   (3) "Best of all, perhaps, serious reading will make you feel good about yourself. Surveys show that TV viewing makes people unhappy and remorseful—but when has anyone ever felt anything but satisfied after finishing a classic?"

You conclude, Maura, by quoting Joseph Brodsky's 1987 Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

'"Though we can condemn ... the persecution of writers, acts of censorship, the burning of books, we are powerless when it comes to [the worst crime against literature]: that of not reading the books. For that ... a person pays with his whole life; ... a nation ... pays with its history."'

There you have it. Slow-Reading: Makes us smarter. Improves our social skills. Makes us feel good.

Where do I sign up??

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go.

Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon.