Stupid Brain.

[fuzzybluemonkeys]

Why is it that when I read fiction about a topic I'm interested in, I could read for days, but when I try to read non-fiction about a topic I'm interested in, I read for five minutes until... Bored Now: Kitty! And then I drag myself back and read some more until Bored Now: Internets! And it's not for lack of interest. I mean, the whole reason I took "Topics in American Book History" was wanting it to be about the structural and manufacturing processes of book production, but while there were hints of it throughout the course, the majority of it was cultural analysis of what does it all meeeeeeeeeaaaaaan? So, for my "Formal Essay" final writing project whatchamawhosit, I decided to do a research paper on the stuff I wanted from the course, so that I would actually get the information. And it is interesting! Like the switch from leather to cloth and casing-in versus binding on boards and changing it so that instead of one person binding the book start to finish, it's all assembly line tasks, so that they could hire less skilled workers on the cheap and eventually replace them with machines (who will eventually rise up and take over the earth!).
So here I am all, "I want to know this!" and my brain is just like, "Nope, naptime!"

Comments

[somnolentblue]

You totally want to be in my descriptive bibliography class. Except what's-his-face, Bowers, who wrote THE descriptive bib book is an ass, which just radiates through everything he writes.

(Gaskill, in contrast, suddenly seems quite straightforward. It's like magic.)

[flaxeloquent.livejournal.com]

I bet it's largely the lack of a "what happened next?" factor, and in a lot of cases, a lack of a "the narrator and/or main character is my friend" factor. I don't think it means you lack a thirst for knowledge.

[fuzzybluemonkey.livejournal.com]

Book Historians need to learn how to be better storytellers. (Of course, it's also clear that most, if not all of them, have never actually done bookbinding themselves and are therefore describing things that were explained to them by someone else)