The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse – a biography has made you love an author more?

I don’t think I have been put off of an author’s books after reading about the author — somewhat dismayed, maybe, but not to the point of never reading them again. One case in point is that of Robert Burns. I dearly love several of his poems — especially To a Mouse, but also To a Louse, A Red, Red Rose, O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast — but some of his other poems are rowdy drinking songs, which I don’t like, and some are rather crass, and he had “a penchant for debauchery and drink” which contributed to his early death at age 37. Yet in The Cotter’s Saturday Night he shows he has been at least exposed to a godly family (I did read in some forgotten source a brother’s quote that he did not know what family Robert had in mind in this poem, but it certainly wasn’t theirs) and contrasts their simple faith and integrity with that of hypocritical religion, as shown in this excerpt:

Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,”
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere

Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

The contrast between the different types of poetry he wrote, the combination of the thoughtful and tender with the less than admirable qualities work together to make an intriguing whole.

After all, we all have our less than admirable qualities. I didn’t stop reading David’s Psalms after learning of his various sins, though they broke my heart. Then again, he was repentant. If I read biographical notes of an author that showed he led a profligate lifestyle, I might be put off from further reading, but I don’t think I read the types of books that someone like that would write in the first place. I would also be put off from reading books by someone with a New Age type philosophy.

The reverse is quite true: reading biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Dickens, C. S. Lewis, Janette Oke, and others made me love their writing all the more and enhanced my understanding and enjoyment of it.

The weekly Booking Through Thursday question for today is:

Something a little different today–

First. Go read this great article from Time Magazine: Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature. (Well worth reading.)

Second. Stop and think about it for moment. Computers and digital media are changing everything we do these days, whether we realize it or not, and that includes our beloved books.

Third. DISCUSS!

It is only natural that technological advances in other areas are also going to affect the world of reading, just as the invention of the printing press did.

I don’t read much in the way of actual books on the computer. It bothers my eyes after a while and it’s not terribly comfortable. There is just something soothing and comforting about curling up on the end of the couch with a good book, a throw blanket, and a cup of coffee that is not quite the same at the computer.

On the other hand, if I am studying something, I like having various sources opened up in different tabs on the computer and being able to just click back and forth between them rather than having the same number of books spread out on the table.

I’ve not gotten into reading on a cell phone or PDA or e-reader. I like the idea of the portability of it, but I can barely get through a text message on my cell phone without it bothering my eyes, and the idea of reading very long on a tiny screen just doesn’t sit well with me.

However, the only one of my sons who is an avid reader reads almost exclusively via electronic means. I wonder if the “coziness” we bibliophiles feel with the tactile sensation of a book will be replaced in the next generation with the feel of a electronic device.

I didn’t realize until this article that publishing houses absorbed the economic failures of the trade, from giving advances to authors whose books don’t sell to taking non-selling books back from stores. No wonder the industry is in trouble. I can see the appeal of electronic publishing in alleviating those factors.

I don’t know if I like the idea of publishing houses being the “gate-keepers” of what is considered good literature. They are going to be more interested in marketability than quality, and the two are not the same, so I don’t think traditional publishers are the last bastions of quality against the perceived cheap and common offerings that will proliferate with the availability and ease of self-publishing. There are a lot of cheap, common, even trashy books, and there will be a lot of the same in any other venue. But I don’t think self-published pieces are any threat to literature any more than YouTube is to Hollywood. There is a lot of junk on YouTube, but there is also a lot of clever stuff that otherwise would never see the light of day.

But I do hope there will always be physical books. I can’t imagine life without them.

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the last Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and plan to read. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button. This month’s participants are here.

When I posted my lengthy list last month, I guess I wasn’t thinking about this being a monthly meme, because I posted almost everything I have stacked up to read, more than I possibly could finish in a month. And then I found a clearance sale at our Christian bookstore and added another stack.

In January I completed What Women Wish You Knew About Dating: A Single Guy’s Guide to Romantic Relationships by Stephen W. Simpson. I had seen it at Deena’s, and have sons in or near dating ages, and the excerpt I saw looked interesting. I ended up having mixed emotions about it — a longer review is here.

I also finished Falling For You Again, the third in the Four Seasons series dealing with marriage by Catherine Palmer and Gary Chapman, and reviewed it here. Each book is about a group of couples in a community in various “seasons” of marriage, but this one primarily focuses on an older couple dealing with declining health and a couple of unresolved issues testing the foundation of their long marriage. It’s sweet but sad, and I loved it.

I also finished @ Home for the Holidays with the same characters from SAHM I Am by Meredith Efken about a group of stay-at-home moms who stay in touch via an e-mail loop. I didn’t review it. It was…ok. I liked the camaraderie and support of the ladies for each other. I did think some were a little catty, and the conservative viewpoints were given to the over-the-top self-righteous member. Not to open a can of worms, but I disagreed with one lady taking over preaching for her pastor-husband while he was ill.

Currently I am still reading the unabridged Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, now on page 612 of this 1,463 page book (up from 366 last month at this time!) I truly rejoiced when I reached page 500 — it seemed like such a milestone!

I’m also reading the last of the Four Seasons of Marriage books by Palmer and Chapman, Winter Turns to Spring, focusing on the youngest couple of the group with perhaps the stormiest relationship, and I just started rereading To the Golden Shore by Courtney Anderson about Americas’ first missionary, Adoniram Judson. It’s a classic missionary biography I read years ago and wanted to revisit.

I also started one of the books I came across at that clearance sale, a daily devotional book titled Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer. When I saw it my first thought was that I didn’t need yet another devotional book, but I had been wanting to read something about or by Meyer for a long time. I kept coming across his name in other Christian biographies but didn’t really know anything about him personally. So this is probably a good introduction to him. I have already been blessed beyond measure as there have been several days the reading for the day has been just exactly what I needed. Funny how God directs through what we think was a random choice.

The devotional book will, of course, take me through the year, and the others will probably take the month until the next “nightstand” posting to complete. If I do get done before then, I have plenty of others waiting for me!