My second column for the Collegian is one I still feel strongly about. I don't read as much as some folks, but I still think that books are about the coolest shit around. I'm pretty sure that at the Graduate School for Library and Information Science, everyone will probably read some books. Though I might be wrong. That'd be pretty wild.
By Tom Ackerman
Consider the following exchange.
Fellow College Student: “Hey Tom, that’s a pretty big book, what class is that for?”
Me: “Oh I’m just reading this for fun”
Fellow College Student then proceeds to look at me like I have a cow leg growing out of my face.
Perhaps this scenario is familiar to you. Perhaps, like me, you are a reader. Perhaps you too were scorned, scoffed at and generally misunderstood in high school simply because you like reading books more than you like interacting with most human beings. Perhaps you too thought that college would be different and were somewhat surprised and disappointed to find that such is not the case. I personally held vaguely formed hopes that dialogues in college would go more like this:
Me: “Hey what are you reading there?”
Fellow College Student: “It’s the complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series in hardback.”
Me: “Wow you’re awesome. Books are awesome. Let’s be friends forever.”
If you are a reader like me, then kudos to you. But I am still constantly surprised by the sheer number of Willamette students who do not read in their free time. The Willamette chapter of the Facebook group “Books are for Badasses” currently has only twenty members. By comparison, the group "I've fooled around with at least one person on my friend's list" currently has 513 members. What is going on here? Don’t people know that books are good for them?
Reading burns more calories than watching television. It helps with your vocabulary. Reading books, like wearing glasses, makes you seem inherently smarter. A good book can even give you a glimpse at the dying art of grammar. Under certain circumstances, reading can even save your life (check out the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook).
In all seriousness though, I know there are many reasons why people don’t read. Homework, sleep, exercise, Facebook and Youtube all take up a student’s valuable time. Now, I’m not trying to turn this fine school into a reclusive geek commune. I’m just suggesting that next time you get a little down time you should pick up a book instead of watching Scrubs reruns or stalking people on the internet or “riding dirty” or whatever it is that you do.
The great thing about books is that there are books for everyone. Do you like sports? There are books about sports. Is politics your thing? There are tons of books about politics (in fact, personal education is a vital aspect of democracy, so if you like politics and you’re not reading, that’s a bit of a problem). If you like post-apocalyptic westerns, go talk to my good friend Stephen King. Just head on down to the Book Bin on Court Street, wander around a while, and I guarantee that you will find a stimulating bit of writing to float your particular boat or tickle one of your fancies.
For those of you who still don’t like books, that’s perfectly fine. Do you know who else didn’t like books? The Nazis. They burned books by the truckload. Now I’m not implying anything here, but you don’t really see Nazis making the big bucks in the corporate sector nowadays do you?
That "Riding Dirty" reference was a line I shamefully pulled mostly unchanged from the Adult Swim show "Frisky Dingo." Some people loved that reference here, and that made me feel kinda crappy since it wasn't really my idea. So after this column I vowed to never again draw lines/jokes from outside sources. Also, I guess I shouldn't have capitalized facebook here, I think in later columns I don't. Anyway, the point is, go read some books. Some books that aren't Harry Potter, I know you've already read those.
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