Read before you run!

On Friday morning, I had to suddenly drive to northern California for a business meeting, and since it's a 6 hour drive from where I live just south of Los Angeles, I knew I needed something to keep my mind occupied. I'm a member of a book club at Talking Book World, so I dashed in to pick up a book on tape for my trip up.

I found Inventing the Middle Ages by Norman Cantor, and my five-second, in-a-big-hurry inspection suggested that this was a history in the Middle Ages, perhaps the development of technology. I love this stuff and thought it would be a delightful way to pass the time while driving those many miles through the middle of nowhere.

Not.

This was a history of the historians of the Middle Ages, and it was really, really awful. Not only was the subject matter totally uninteresting to me (e.g., I don't care about medieval scholars and their background which informed their perspective on the middle ages blah blah blah), but Cantor is a terrible writer.

Central California is a radio wasteland, so listening to this drivel was only slightly better than nothing. Once I reached San Jose, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?", the story of how Lou Gerstner turned IBM around. Though I'm taken to understand that many IBMers consider it to be a self-serving book, it was at least very easy to listen to, and it made the 100 mph trip back home much more pleasant.

But never again will I grab a book for a long trip without really knowing what I'm getting.

Posted by Steve at March 02, 2003 10:09 AM | TrackBack