Reading Direction

Excerpt from "Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell" by Deborah Solomon

I love to watch movies from the middle. There are some films I really like that I have never seen from the Beginnng. Sometimes I prefer to find a movie already broadcasting then retrieve one from the DVR or pop in a DVD. There is something about the beginnings that I find tedious. It is the same with non-fiction books. Almost all biographies begin with grandparents and a whole lot of material about a person that I am not that sure I am committed to knowing all about. The first full biography of Lincoln that I read I began with his election. Then as my curiosity increased and questions formed I began to read the earlier chapters and could understand the relevance to the mature Lincoln. I almost always read biographies from the point of the story that first drew me to that character. I have read a few that don't start with the deep family history and it is refreshing.

I must say that this habit may very well constitue some kind of disease. I always flip through magazines and newspapers backwards. Of course I don't read that way but rather search out what I will read. But why? I think it may be heriditary because I can picture my father reading the newspaper from back to front. I was sadly born for the fragment; I don't believe that is a positive.