(via TIM McFARLANE: Required reading)

A new blog post where I attempt to review recent art biographies of Gerhard Richter and Caravaggio. The latter book I’m still in the midst of reading, but liked it enough to recommend it…

dfingas:

READING is FUNDS for the MENTAL!

(Source: rf9, via black-culture)

(via mynameisalison-deactivated20130)

austinkleon:

Slate has an interesting excerpt up from Andrew Piper’s _Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times _.

Love this bit on the hands and _hand_books:

Books, like hands, hold our attention. As early as the 12th century, writers began drawing hands in the margins of their books to…

sultan-minutes:

Yo….this is like…real life

(via themusepaper)

bobulate:

Amy King on reading:

Reading appears passive because it takes place in a chair, on a bed, at the beach, in the tub, etc. Reading is action, exercise demanding strength of mind. Therein lies the resistance (‘so boring!’) of folks spoon-fed DVDs and television growing up (John Berryman replies, ‘Ever to confess you’re bored / means you have no /Inner Resources.’). Reading these words requires mind muscle that the average episode of Law and Order does not (exemption: visual arts can render complex readings). Watching takes less effort, but using your cabeza to think-into-being concepts, characters, and ideas lying dormant in a book, well, this means working the imagination into a sweat and, by default, developing other difficult-to-discuss human attributes like empathy and conscience. We stretch and test and grow those head-muscles through debate, analysis, and reading.

Her prescription:

“Why schedule work-outs for the body, but neglect everything above the neck? Start a revolution, ‘Kill your television’ and ‘Steal this book.’”

Brilliant. (And countless others to enjoy on the reading series.)

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