Call it the paradox of the book. Where we can read, where we should read, even in a place where reading might address the exact problem being battled and where there is little else to do but read, we don’t.
Randy Saltzman wrote these words after a dispiriting spell in the Charlottesville juvenile court waiting room: “No one here has a book, or a newspaper, or a magazine, even though all of us came aware that we might wait for hours.” He, in contrast, had brought along Reading Lolita in Tehran, a book about a group of Iranian women who dare imprisonment in their hunger for literature.
Saltzman is a freelance author living in Charlottesville whose work appears regularly in both local and national media. He is a member of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club and is also actively at work to increase the use of mass transit in our area. See this post at Charlottesville Tomorrow for more (scroll down).
Thanks to Sean for the tip!
Filed under: authors, books, charlottesville, reading, virginia Tagged: | Blue Ridge Chapter Virginia Writers Club, Charlottesville Tomorrow, Randy Saltzman, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Washington Post
