. Book of the Month

I have not read many books in the last couple of years. I have listened to a lot of audio books that I borrow from the library and illegally download into my ipod and play in the car on the drive to and from work, up and down highway 280, twice a day, 5 days a week, 360 hours a year.

But listening to an audio book is not the same as reading. When you read a book it's just you and the words. When you listen to a book it's you and the words and someone else telling you how to feel about them before you get a chance to make up your own mind.

So this year I have determined to read more actual books. A book a month. This month's book was "Candide" by Voltaire.

Here is my report:

[spoiler alert!]

Candide is an innocent young man who loses the girl he fancies and spends the rest of the book wandering around the world looking for her. And as he wanders he tries to figure out if it is "the best of all possible worlds," while he (along with pretty much everyone else in the book) is beaten, tortured, raped, robbed, swindled, imprisoned, enslaved, betrayed, and killed.



So it's kind of a black comedy in the guise of a romantic adventure. And lots of satirical jokes are made about religion, philosophy, science, law, war, mathematics, and all the stuff that the author didn't like, including publishers, journalists, the opera, the British, and Jews.

It was written in the 18th century, so half the book is footnotes that explain why the jokes are funny. So they are not.

Next month I will be reading "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", the European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson.

Why don't you read it too? You can tell me what you think. It will be like a Book Club, but no one will have to clean their house and make tea.