I’m actually reading a paper book (!), and last week I did a lot of cast iron skillet cooking. Feeling very retro.

I’m currently reading Zane Grey for some mindless escapism, and I’m struck by how much our accepted views on a topic change in a short amount of time: A virgin valley “longs for a settler’s cabin” and Indians are lazy and unproductive hangers-on. Now we’ve got a planet that fights back against human infection (the god-awful remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still) and native americans are inherently innocent and nobler than gods themselves (Dances with Wolves/ Avatar). What else is changing I wonder? I’m confident my current worldview will one day be ruthlessly mocked by my children.

Apart from cultural touchpoints, its notable how much the writing has changed – more formal, with a broader vocabulary, and generally much more erudite. We’ve got great writers today, no doubt. But Grey’s reader would not have been the intellectual class – these were written for the masses. How the baseline of American literacy has fallen in 70 years!

And based on your most recent reads, I must ask: will you be blogging about the bank you rob??