BOOK READING

Have you heard of the Japanese word "tsundoku'? It describes the process of buying books and letting them pile up unread. I confess I'm guilty of this and currently have over 50 books waiting to be explored. And then along came the Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st Century to date. Mind you, it's really the top 200 because they provided a 'didn't quite make it' list as well.

Did you submit your Top 10 books of the 21st Century?

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books  

I did but I confess that only two of my list ended up in the Top 100 and only another two in the next 100. And that’s even when I went out of my way to look more intellectual that I really am by excluding from consideration the many detective novels I read. When the results came out, I thought I had been particularly clever because I’d read 49 of the top 100 but I’ve just met someone whose read 69! 



It was impressive to hear during the broadcast on 18 & 19 October that over 280,000 people voted. Who says that no-one listens to Radio National, the station I managed for a number of years? And it was great to see so many  Australian authors on the list. Of course that may be sign of parochialism but it’s better than the days of the tall poppy syndrome where people didn’t think our writers and artists were up to scratch.

My challenge now is do I go back and read the many books that I’ve missed on the top 100 list or do I just concentrate on all the unread books on my shelves... Let alone the other 380 books that I have on an electronic list waiting to be read?

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