April 22, 2013.

Several months ago a movie critic described to some of us who were spending an evening together how she approaches reviewing movies.  She said she tries to think about films using three points: what was the artist trying to do, how well did he/she do it, and was it worth doing?

That was eye opening (mind opening?) for me as I usually just react to what I’ve seen by thinking about what I liked or didn’t like. While I can’t say I’ve totally changed how I approach thinking about the many movies I see, I have been using her categories to expand my response to what I am seeing.

I also began to wonder about my reading and my reactions to what I read, as I spend a good deal of time with books (in one form or another). In fact, I signed up for a two hour talk and discussion at our wonderful, local bookstore, Politics & Prose with Pulitzer Prize winning critic Michael Dirda on “How to Read a Book” (I’ll write about what I learn after the ‘course’).

And I began to think about reading vs rereading, Continue reading »