Ruined by Reading - Sharon Schwartz

Ruined by reading was a very different book than I expected. I didn't expect this memoir on the affect of reading to the author's life to be a keep but it continually asked thought provoking questions about the nature of power and our imagination.

Schwartz questions the very nature and content of a book and the past-time of reading while also questioning our cultural expectations around pleasure and discipline.

I very much enjoyed this book.

Purchase Ruined by Reading on Amazon

- reading too much can be a handicap, when do you leave your mind free of interference from others ideas? Pg 1
- this is doubly so for digital distractions that are in our pockets

- [[Patterns of Culture - Ruth Benedict]] Pg 2
- [[Zen Mind Beginner's Mind - Shunryū Suzuki]] Pg 13

- before books you couldn't be a reader. You'd work and then what? Pg 16
- I'd get more sleep at least because I'd go to bed earlier just after the kids
- stories were [[Research Dashboards/community|community]] focused then because you had to tell a story to others, or listen to a story

- loudness is not a sign of strength. What strength of character does it take to speak loudly, especially when you have cultural power. Strength is the quiet unmoving in the face of loudness. Pg 50

- are our pleasures weakened once they are sanctioned? Do they suddenly become an obligation once someone says you are allowed to do your pleasurable thing and in fact should be doing it. Pg 52

- the language used by the author to describe reading is excellent. Pg 53
- "Like a lover carries across a threshold, books carried through the mundane"

- are we under the erroneous assumption that we must earn pleasure as a reward for suffering or abstinence? Must we exert discipline first before any pleasurable "reward" can come about? Pg 53

- [[Lord of the Flies - William Golding]] Pg 59

- [[Hawaii - Hansen disease]] Pg 59

- do we struggle with books turned to movies because the visuals don't match up with the worlds we invented in our heads? Our imagination outstrips anything [[Hollywood]] can "safely" show us because Hollywood is really an economic engine trying to ensure profit. Pg 96

- [[A Critic's Notebook - Irving Howe]] Pg 92

- hardly any [[politicians]] reveal any real voice in their quest to be everything to everyone. They they become bland when they stand for little but try to appease all parties. Pg 114
- so to those that write with a sense of opinion and voice attract while no opinion merely feels like it's placating the masses and has no appeal