Fine literature and books that are worth reading is a touchy issue to bring up to a lot of people. People often confess with their lips that they value fine literature and books that are really worth reading yet their lives show that they do not value it enough to give it enough time to make it happen. True people are busy but if something is valued enough one will always fine time to make it happen. Yet so often it is not a lack of desire but a lack of planning that is the downfall of many or as it has been said that to fail to plan is to plan to fail. As was my case which runs back to my time in middle school when looking through a mail order catalog and saw a product a product headline entitled: “Acquire and apply the wisdom contained in the 100 greatest books, without a lifetime of study.” It was promoting this product which is pretty much a set set of 30 to 45 minute audio summaries of what have been deemed the 100 greatest books of Western Civilization, only it was tape instead of CD and it listed both the title and author instead of just title in the description. Not wanting mere cheat sheets on the list I tore the page out of the catalog and carried it folded up in my wallet next to my library card for years without looking at it.
The time and effort and possibly money needed to track down great classical works to read at either a bookstore or a library is another reason why I believe that many people do not read them. The advent of ebooks has in some ways made them more assessable through sites such as Project Gutenberg, a collection of free ebooks, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for Christian classics and other including Classic Reader and Bartleby Great Books online. While plain text file ebooks can be ackward to read there are free solutions such as Tom’s eTextReader, designed to make ebooks look and read more like traditional books on the screen complete with bookmarks. But this will only get one so far as one can fill up their computer hard drive with ebooks but unless they take the time to read them they do not do them any good. I am not saying that downloading ebooks is without value just that they require an added level of discipline that many lack. Finally there is a solution which I think would work for anybody who is disciplined enough to stay caught up with their email more times than not as that is what DailyLit is build around. DailyLit lets you select the ebooks that you want to read and it then delivers them via email one manageable big at the time on the schedule you choose (ie daily, weekdays, weekends, etc), with the option to receive the next installment right away if you want to keep on reading after you finish the current installment of the book. Also for those who think something like this would be great for Bible reading there are similiar free Bible reading plans via email services at Bible Reading Plans and Bible in a Year. While reading books over email might not be seen as being as ideal as being able to set aside the time to read them on one’s own; it is more important to find a system that works for you. So if email is what it takes for you, don’t feel bad about it, be glad that there are good people out there who want to help you get in the reading you want to free of charge over email.
This blog’s great!! Thanks
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