While researching people who subscribe to magazines, an advertising company came across an elderly farmer who recently began subscribing to both National Geographic and Playboy. That confused the researchers because this gent clearly didn’t fit well anywhere in their demographic model. So they called him.
“Sir,” the caller said, “we see very little similarity between these two magazines. Would you please tell us why you subscribe to both?”
“Well,” the old fella said. “Both magazines have great stories and dozens of beautiful color photographs of places I’ll never get to visit.”
So there.
Because I am in the semifinals of life, I read a lot of books. I do this because books take me to places I’ll never get to visit, and that includes the past. There’s so much we can learn about this business from the past and I find the best lessons come from stories.
Each year, I set out to read at least 100 good books. This is my hobby and also a big part of my job. Writers have to stand in a pounding surf of words and absorb the stories.
This year, I decided to read all the books that have ever won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. There are 85 of them. They begin in 1918. Some years (such as this year) had no winner. I decided to read the list from both ends, aiming for the center, which is 1964, a year in which there was no winner. Each book is wonderful in its own way. Some are page-turners; others are head-scratchers. While fighting my way through one of William Faulkner’s tomes (he won the Pulitzer twice), I came across a sentence that went on for five-and-a-half pages. I went immediately from that sentence to the liquor cabinet.