In my post-college run at life I had for the most part avoided reading, since reading pretty much described my life for four years. I read a lot. I’m not sure, but I think I damn well read more than everyone else did. I’m almost sure of it. While everyone else was partying and getting the full college experience, here I was frantically trying to fit in the demonically Herculean effort of keeping up with the syllabus. One description of myself Freshman year really hit home: Tanveer, the Bangladeshi who lived next door pretty much had only seen me up on the top bunk with a book in my hand. That’s all he knew of me. And this is coming from the FOREIGN KID, going to a liberal arts school for SCIENCE. What the hell was wrong with me?

Although I did (and still do) obsessively read my new magazines that come every week I kind of avoided books like the plague. Would you blame me? I’ve come to regret that lately, and have thus started to actually buy and READ new books. I read exclusively non-fiction now, really. I get enough fiction in the gazillion films I watch, I guess, so I really want to actually learn something. As sick as I was of school I can’t help but want to learn.

So far I’ve trucked through a history of The Second World War by John Keegan, read Roger Ebert’s Great Movies, gotten part way through 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and almost finished Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Today I got The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh (anyone noticing any patterns?) and read through the introduction. While I find the premise extremely interesting thus far this book has to be the densest thing I’ve read since college. I mean it took me over an hour to get through 23 pages! The book is over 800 pages long. You do the math. I’m hoping this is just the introduction, as actually reading this book might become an effort that I cannot finish.