Ambitious Indiscriminate Reading

I just finished reading a book called What Happened to Art Criticism? by James Elkins and could not help feeling a little hopeless that I would most likely remember what he wrote and some of the main points that he made, but I would not be able to remember that is was him who wrote them or the name of the book they are in. This is a sad state to be in. My memory is so poor when it comes to authors and titles that while writing research papers and just random essays I have a large amount of knowledge that I cannot use because I cannot remember who attribute it to.

In Elkins conclusion he states that "Each writer, no matter what their place and purpose, should have an endless bibliography, and know every pertinent issue and claim. We should all read until our eyes are bleary, and we should read both ambitiously... and also indiscriminately - finding work that might ordinarily escape us."

It was this little half of a paragraph that made me think hard about how I do read ambitiously and indiscriminately, but I feel often to no avail because I cannot remember what goes with what and where my ideas start and the author's end.

I have for a long time now wanted to keep a running list of books that I read and what I felt about them. I have tried it several times, but always run out of room or loose the notebook I was keeping my list in. So for the same reason that I started blogging about my craft/art things, I am going to start a blog about what I read. It is the perfect format for me to keep track of things and the archive will work as a "finished reads" index because the title of each post will be the title of the book or article that I am discussing.

Because I have a constant list of books that I am reading at any given time, I usually finish one a week. I am planning on posting one review a week with other smaller posts scattered around about other literary things (like books I buy, library lists, events, and other random things I find).

I'm very excited about this project and I hope that in among all the reading and writing going on I will improve my own writing so it will someday be more coherent and organized.

The name of the blog is Ambitious Indiscriminate Reading, there is a link in the sidebar permanently, and the address is http://ambitiousindiscriminatereading.blogspot.com. The first review should be up by tomorrow evening, so check back then if you wish. I really hope to get some feedback from this project too. Let me know if you've read the books I am reading, if you think what I am saying makes sense or is a load of junk. I want to know how you felt about the books that I review dispite what I may say.

That is about all for now. I may put together a more craft related post later, but for now the laundry is calling me.

Until next time!