Do I Really Have to Market Reading To You?

I got waaaay behind in some of my RSS feeds in September, so I just saw this AdFreak commentary on the latest Steinmatsky ad campaign.  Steinmatsky is an Israeli bookseller, and the ad is trying to tell us to read more so we are smarter and more open minded, but as Adfreak points out:

The image, which could have been pulled directly from a Tom Piccirilli novel, simply shows non-readers that they have lucrative careers ahead in carnivals, freak shows and Rob Zombie movies. Dabitch at Adland points out another problem with this ad: “Most men I know always want a little head.”

Right.  So–that’s how not to get excited about reading.  But if you do have any interest in books or reading, I highly recommend you head over to Nextbook and sign up for their weekly podcasts, pronto.

Sara Ivry hosts the weekly discussions with all kinds of different people, from writers to chefs to cantors.  Her questions are always insightful and elicit all kinds of juicy answers from her interviewees.  She’s kind of like a Jewish Terry Gross.  I actually find Sara and her interviews so convincing that I only allow myself to listen to the podcasts every few weeks because if I listened to them one at a time I would just go out and buy whatever book she’s talking about every single time, instead of doing what I do now, which is listening to five at a time and buying only three or four of the books she’s recommending.

In particular, I recommend
Prayer Revival
Rebel Yells
Death of a Pothead
Land of Plenty
Paradise Lost

Anyway, there’s a cold Shabbat coming up, and then two more days of yontif and I’m all shulled out, so I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time at home curled up with a nextbook-suggested book.