Periodically

I'm trying to finish the November 5, 2009 issue of The New York Review of Books. That makes reading it sound like a bit of a pain, but the quality of articles in the issue in question is excellent and I'm thoroughly enjoying the read. I bought it originally having read Jerome Groopman's enlightening article Right & Wrong Diagnosis on-line (here) and decided I wanted a 'proper' copy, as it were. I then discovered the issue to be full of unputdownable stuff - John Carey on a new biography of Robbie Burns, as just one example. The problem has been that unputdownable as it is I have had to keep putting it down.

And this problem has been compounded by my puchase of another, later issue when we were in London along with a tasty-looking London Review of Books for the month of December. Both were a lot cheaper than they would have been in Singapore. Fortunately, I managed to avoid loading up with piles of other worthy magazines - this being made easier to do than in past visits to the UK by the relative dearth of items of interest on the shelves of places like W.H. Smith. I assume the business is moving on-line by some mysterious process. Or perhaps it's just symptomatic of the general cultural dumbing-down for which our species has opted. Or perhaps it's my fault for simply not reading enough.

Anyway, part of this weekend is being dedicated to cutting into my backlog of reading. I'm also intending to try and view all the DVDs I've accumulated recently - not many in terms of what other people have got (about 5 to watch) but tricky for someone as resolutely movie-averse as myself.