Most of you know that I get books from the TEXAS TALKING BOOK PROGRAM. While I get to do most of my reading via Kindle-apps, this is a great program for when I’m not connected to one of my digital devices. (Yes, it happens!) A cartridge comes with a book on it. I look at the title and author, and either listen or send it back.
Usually I listen.
It is sort of the closest thing to the way I used to go to the library when I was 10. Meandering stacks of books, randomly picking topics I didn’t know anything about by people I had never heard of. It’s hard to do that digitally. There is just too much stuff to randomly browse like that. You used to be able to go a few feet and get something totally different. Now, I don’t know…
Somehow we’re missing the past, present, and future because we are so tied to our devices. Don’t get me wrong, digital tools are blessings to me! I’m no Luddite!
I just miss the time when the words and ideas mattered. I miss savoring a book slowly.
Anyhow…
I just finished a real treasure. It was a surprise, I didn’t really think that I would like it. I did!
TJ Stiles is a fun biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Don’t get me wrong, it is well researched and well written. I don’t know what I expected, maybe something as interesting as listening to the phone book being read.
It was a real roller-coaster ride alongside the man who went from brawling sailor to transportation tycoon. Cornelius Vanderbilt may not have created modern America, but he sure contributed DNA.
The whole way through, I kept thinking, “NOTHING has changed in 200 years. The past, present, and future are still tied together.
