I’ve got a bunch of books at my house. They’re everywhere. Maybe a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand, who knows.
I’m not bragging, not that you would be impressed anyway. Lo, for the world where the guy with a house full of books is envied.
I haven’t read most of them anyway. Not that I won’t pretend if something comes up in conversation -- not that books ever do. But if one did, like let’s say someone out of guilt or obligation invites me to a swanky party and one of the other swells happens to mention a book I’ve heard of, I’m going to go ahead and pretend like I’ve read it.
Pretty much a title or an author and a basic knowledge of who was in the movie is enough to get me through any conversation with even the stuffiest of bookworms.
I was recently talking with pals about … want to guess? Okay, it was the election. And we were earnestly discussing the prescience of the Sinclair Lewis book It Can’t Happen Here, about a demagogue fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values.
After a while it was apparent none of us had read the book and only one of us could even remember reading a summary from Wikipedia, whose description of the book I lifted previously.
It occurred to me that maybe the actual book doesn’t even exist; it’s just some legend like the lost city of Atlantis or “rural America.” But, no, when I went home I found It Can’t Happen Here in my own collection -- a used hardcover, which I dusted off, and then lost track of.
Reading is hard, but democracy is harder. Don’t forget to vote Tuesday. Wait? What? It did. No spoilers. I really, really don’t want to know what happened.
I’m Dan Libman, and that’s my perspective.
