Free books and moral dilemmas


Yes, one book in the whole of the UK. And what a surprise, it's in London.

I was interested to read about the Guardian's attempt to get us all leaving books all over the place for other people to find. Apparently they've conned 15,000 copies out of publishers which they (what, just the Guardian staff?) are going to leave randomly about the place, and they are encouraging the rest of us to do likewise. You can even download a special bookplate to paste into your book for the purposes.

What's more there's a funky map showing where all the books have been left or found, though when I looked it only had one book on it, left by the Guardian's literary editor (Gormenghast, how... literary).

I really can't make up my mind if this is:

A very good idea that will encourage people to read more
Going to result in lots of people (e.g. staff in a cafe where you leave a book/street cleaners) picking up books as rubbish and binning them
A typical wishy-washy Guardian idea that's great fun (isn't it, Jacinda?) and totally pointless

The trouble is, if I took part, and if I could resist giving a book I wrote away, my inclination would be to give a book I really hate. After all, the books I love I want to keep and read again. And then I would have to lie on the bookplate and sing its praises, when really I think it's total rubbish. Do these Guardian people realize the moral dilemmas they are creating?

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog