Langour Management laments about not being able to read any more enjoyable fiction in academia:
How many times have I been on the train or in the park at lunch and seen someone enjoying a book of genre fiction, while I’ve been highlighting a mixed pile of pages photocopied from the Canon? Sometimes I see women reading novels with paper over the covers so we can’t tell that it’s really a romance novel they’re enjoying. And these are the same people who are embarrassed to talk to us academics about books, always afraid they’re not “getting it” and that we’re going to think them stupid or ignorant. But why hide it?! We’re the ignorant ones! They should be proud that they’re even reading a satisfying story from start to finish.
I have a lot on my list of things to read, although ironically my problem is spending way too much time on my own manuscripts. Kenneth Champeon calls my attention to Nuruddin Farah from Somalia.
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