Is Twitter the Death of Reading?

January was pretty much out of control so I should probably be thankful that I got to read a few books (some of them actually good) and at least try to keep the ACOR website up to date and maintain some semblance of a reading record in a constantly aborting database. Add to that the iPhone battery going south and I spent little time in my favorite coffee haunts reading and sipping Goat Bombs.

One thing that has taken up far to much of my time is Twitter. I still refuse to use most of the social platforms on the internet but for some reason I started getting my up-to-date news, or at least relevant gossip, from Twitter. But I am rapidly reaching the understanding that although Twitter may have some value, it will never compensate for the inordinate amount of time following tweets consume on any given day, newsworthy or not.

Is Twitter worth it?

Look at all these titles I suggested in January. If I purged Twitter from my iPhone, I possibly could have read three or four of these intriguing books. Look, I even included Michael Wolff’s attention grabber. Fire and Fury (as if I would ever read it myself). Maybe I should read Trumplandia?

01-01-18 – Lost English: Words and Phrases That Have Vanished From Our Language — Chris Rpberts
01-02-18 – Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment In Black America — James Forman Jr.
01-03-18 – Nothing — Henry Green
01-04-18 – Uncertain Glory — Joan Sales
01-05-18 – Complete Stories — Kurt Vonnegut
01-06-18 – Necropolis — Santiago Gamboa
01-07-18 – American On Purpose — Craig Ferguson
01-08-18 – The Greek Coffin Mystery — Ellery Queen
01-09-18 – Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir — Amy Tan
01=10-18 – The World Jones Made — Philip K. Dick
01-11-18 – Richard II — William Shakespeare
01-12-18 – The Lifestyle — Terry Gould
01-13-18 – Five Carat Soul — James McBride
01-14-18 – Like a Dog — Tara Jepsen
01-15-18 – The Power — Naomi Alderman
01-16-18 – All the Dirty Parts — Daniel Handler
01-17-18 – Smile — Roddy Doyle
01-18-18 – How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays — Umbertp Eco
01-19-18 – Dinner at the Centre of the Earth — Nathan Englander
01-20-18 – Manhood For Amateurs — Michael Chabon
01-21-18 – Balcony In the Forest — Julien Gracq
01-22-18 – Aegypt — John Crowley
01-23-18 – Confessions — Augustine (Trans. Sarah Ruden)
01-24-18 – Fire and Fury — Michael Wolff
01-25-18 – Forest Dark: A Novel — Nicole Krauss
01-26-18 – Hotel Silence — Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
01-27-18 – The Sellout — Paul Beatty
01-28-18 – The Murders of Molly Southbourne — Made Thompson
01-29-18 – The Ancestor’s Tale (A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life) — Richard Dawkins
01-30-18 – Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Legend — Leo Ruickbie
01-31-18 – The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever — Frank Gifford