December 16, 2011

Things To Do With Books #27

For this month’s entry we have a simple, yet fun exercise that can really spice up your book reading with minimal effort on your part. We here at The Institute For Things To Do With Books call it the self-induced deja vu. Here’s how it goes. Next time you find yourself in a book store – which, if you are anything like us, happens with frightening regularity, and often when least expected – go out into the fiction stacks and find a book that meets the following criteria: you have not read it; you have no immediate intentions to read it (which includes having it already on your shelf at home, having a hold on it at the library, or having dropped obvious hints around friends and family members as your birthday/gift-giving holidays approach); and, finally, you can see yourself reading said book somewhere down the line, say in two, three, or five years. Once you have found a book that satisfies these guidelines, open the book to a random page, somewhere after page 50 but not much farther than page 200. Now read a full paragraph from this page. There. That’s everything needed on your end. Close the book […]