Very Short Introductions

The Eye of the World. The Beatles. At Dawn We Slept. When China Rules the World. Napoleon: A Life. Five books I’ve read over the past year – numbering 832, 992, 912, 848, and 976 pages respectively. All together it took me 160 days to get through those five diverse books, those 4,560 pages. That’s over a month a book.

That’s also unacceptable. While I enjoyed each read, and each read taught me new and different and even exciting stuff, that’s just too much precious time devoted to very specific, very narrow topics. If I was a poli sci major, then that China read is justifiable. If I taught high school history, then the Pearl Harbor and Napoleon books would be essential. But I am not a political science major or a history teacher. Nor am I a fantasy novelist or a musician, at least professionally.

I read for relaxation and to mollify an almost insatiable curiosity. And if you find yourself sharing this predilection with me, I’d like to share a very interesting discovery:

Very Short Introductions.

I became aware of these at my local library a few years back, when I read Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction, and then completely forgot about it. “Very Short Introductions” are small paperback books, usually between a 100 and 150 pages, aimed at an educated general readership, each about a specific topic, topics that range all across the spectrum. Begun in 1995, there are currently over 600 titles. From biographies to philosophy to religion to science to history to literature – you name it, there’s a Very Short Introduction out there on it.

Next week the family is doing its annual pilgrimage down to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Instead of bringing one or two clunky doorstops to bog me down on the beach, I’m going to bring a dozen of these books and read whichever ones jump out at me in the moment. I’ll wager I can put away three, maybe four during the vacation, completely satiating that annoying curiosity that keeps me jumping hither and thither.

From the library, based on what was available, I borrowed “Very Short Introductions” on:

Cosmology

Film

Galaxies

Goethe

Hinduism

Kabbalah

Kafka

The Laws of Thermodynamics

Mormonism

The New Testament as Literature

The Old Testament

Thomas Aquinas

A nice, wide swath of the Dewey Decimal System. Enough for whatever mood might strike me at any given moment over the seven days we’ll spend down south. And, as always, I will report back any interesting discoveries hidden betwixt those very short pages …