Went to Holland Village this afternoon for my Birthday Cup of Tea and managed to pick up a copy of the very handsome Mekong Review at the magazine shop on the corner. This is the May - July edition, which means I missed the previous edition early in the year, but no matter. It's been a long, long time since I've felt obliged to read any publication on a regular basis and that isn't about to change.
But something has definitely changed in my life over the last two years in relation to my reading habits. I realised with quite a jolt the other day that I've still not finished reading the first NYRB I bought in 2019. Yes, I'm still only about halfway through the January edition. When I bought it I thought I'd have it read in a couple of weeks, not least because I immediately zoomed through five articles that caught my eye. So what happened? As far as I can tell it's my smart phone that's pulling me away from my usual reading, not into the world of social media, a world in which I have zero interest, (I'd hardly describe this poor blog as 'social' in any real sense, by the way, in case you were wondering) but into the world of the sort of thing I usually read except I'm not reading it in the usual way.
Whatever I read on the phone, or my laptop, doesn't seem to entirely engage me somehow. I find myself skimming most articles and rarely reread anything. A kind of depth is missing. I'm treading the shallows. That which deserves attention, sometimes demands it, isn't getting it from me, I'm afraid.
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