1. Don´t go and read "a few pages" before falling asleep. Seriously, just don´t. It always turns into "a few hundred".
2. Go to sleep before midnight, for a change. It makes it easier to actually get up the next morning.
3. Don´t leave the window open at night unless you want to wake up every time the train passes.
Last night, I broke all three. But I had my reasons.
First of all, I don´t have to be awake before noon. That makes it really hard to convince myself to go to bed before midnight.
Second, it wasn´t just a random book. It was Slaughterhouse-Five. I´ve wanted to read that book for a long time because everyone praises it so much. Really, even my favorite TV shows speak about it (Supernatural and Criminal Minds, anyone?). It´s considered one of the most influential American novels of the 20th century.
Most importantly, it is about the firebombing of Dresden. I live in Dresden, 62 years later. Today is the 13th of February. I just needed to finish that book.
And it really touched me. Made me think. My sleep-deprived brain was a tangle of twisted ideas and strange thoughts afterwards, all messed up and broken and warped.
It´s an awesome book. I guess Cat´s Cradle is next.
What I don´t get is - why can we not talk about this stuff in school? In English class, in Literature class, I don´t care. It might just help to get all those superficial teenagers reading again if there´d be books that actually talk about stuff teenagers are interested in - blood, violence, sex, humour, time travel, whatever.
It doesn´t have to be Vonnegut, if they don´t want to talk about war. There are so many renowned writers that might be interesting for younger readers - Bukowski sure enough talks about stuff most teenagers know, Salinger´s Catcher in the Rye is great, Nabokov´s Lolita deals with pedophilia, everyone has watched Fight Club so it shouldn´t be too hard to make them actually read the god damn book. (And really, Fight Club has many interesting points about modern society.)
Reading is important. I mean, it teaches you so many things. It builds and extends your vocabulary. Reading is the reason why my English is good and my French sucks. Reading is the thing that got me interested in so many other things. Reading makes us think. It´s an effortless way of learning because a good novel teaches you things without you noticing it.
I´ve always hated History.
Vonnegut taught me more about war than all those 12 years of History class.
3. Don´t leave the window open at night unless you want to wake up every time the train passes.
Last night, I broke all three. But I had my reasons.
First of all, I don´t have to be awake before noon. That makes it really hard to convince myself to go to bed before midnight.
Second, it wasn´t just a random book. It was Slaughterhouse-Five. I´ve wanted to read that book for a long time because everyone praises it so much. Really, even my favorite TV shows speak about it (Supernatural and Criminal Minds, anyone?). It´s considered one of the most influential American novels of the 20th century.
Most importantly, it is about the firebombing of Dresden. I live in Dresden, 62 years later. Today is the 13th of February. I just needed to finish that book.
And it really touched me. Made me think. My sleep-deprived brain was a tangle of twisted ideas and strange thoughts afterwards, all messed up and broken and warped.
It´s an awesome book. I guess Cat´s Cradle is next.
What I don´t get is - why can we not talk about this stuff in school? In English class, in Literature class, I don´t care. It might just help to get all those superficial teenagers reading again if there´d be books that actually talk about stuff teenagers are interested in - blood, violence, sex, humour, time travel, whatever.
It doesn´t have to be Vonnegut, if they don´t want to talk about war. There are so many renowned writers that might be interesting for younger readers - Bukowski sure enough talks about stuff most teenagers know, Salinger´s Catcher in the Rye is great, Nabokov´s Lolita deals with pedophilia, everyone has watched Fight Club so it shouldn´t be too hard to make them actually read the god damn book. (And really, Fight Club has many interesting points about modern society.)
Reading is important. I mean, it teaches you so many things. It builds and extends your vocabulary. Reading is the reason why my English is good and my French sucks. Reading is the thing that got me interested in so many other things. Reading makes us think. It´s an effortless way of learning because a good novel teaches you things without you noticing it.
I´ve always hated History.
Vonnegut taught me more about war than all those 12 years of History class.
