Recommended Reading in this Week’s New Yorker
Ian Frazier’s Shouts in Murmurs in this week’s New Yorker is hilarious. He starts with this excerpt:
Check books out of the library instead of buying them. . . . New releases of hard-cover novels cost $25 and more these days. If you buy just two a month, that’s $600 a year.
—From “Ten Sure Ways to Trim Your Budget,” in the News.
Then follows extremely amusing letters in response, such as…
Mitch Gelman, West Hempstead, New York: “As an accountant, the first thing I tell my clients is ‘Get a library card!’ Otherwise, you’re too subject to temptation, and liable to find yourself in over your head. Few people know that the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is the ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’ novels. You overspend on one, and, just when you begin to dig yourself out, the next installment comes along. Public libraries began during the Depression as a government measure against this very problem. They’re there for our protection, so we should use them.”
Go read it, it’s short.