Book Phantom’s Ten Commandments for the Reading Life

1. Thou shalt commit thyself to the Reading Life.  Start now.  It’s easy.  Buy books, get a library card, put your butt in the chair and read the dusty volumes you already have but haven’t read.  Set goals to complete a target number of books each week, month, or year.  To help you stay committed, join Shelfari, a website where readers list books they’ve read, are reading, and want to read.  Shelfari tracks the number of books you’ve read during the year and tells you whether you are ahead or behind your pace compared with previous years.  It offers book synopses and reviews, and you can rate and review your own books, recommend books to friends, and join online book discussions.
2. Thou shalt put reading before all other diversions.  What I mean is, turn off that damn T.V.!  It’s not that television and other trivial amusements (PlayStation, Tweeting, mindless Internet surfing, porn, *ahem* blogging) don’t have a place in our lives – these just need to come after books if you are to embrace the Reading Life.
3. Thou shalt not idolize classics, best sellers, or prize winning works.  In other words, there is no place for literary snobbery in the Reading Life.  Canadian playwright Robertson Davies said, “Do not suppose…that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.”  Wise words, eh?  Read anything and everything that interests you – graphic novels, tawdry romances, tell-all bios, children’s books, barbarian fantasies, trendy diet books…anything goes.