The oldest one is recommending the book he\u2019s just finished to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should read this,\u201d he says, handing me a well-thumbed paperback, which I turn over in my\u00a0hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlue,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cover\u2019s blue, yeah,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a translation, and not much happens, but it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOK,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019m already reading a\u00a0book, but I will take this on holiday with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I need a new book,\u201d he says. \u201cAny ideas?\u201d<\/p>\n
This has never happened before. I\u2019ve recommended many books to my sons over the years, but to my knowledge they have never read any of\u00a0them. My wife also never reads the books I recommend, even though I\u00a0always read the ones she recommends to me. Actual publishers sometimes ask me to provide blurbs for books, but\u00a0at home my advice in these matters is both unsolicited and ignored. Until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHmm,\u201d I say, tapping my chin. \u201cLet me think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m about to go out, so \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book I\u2019m reading right now isn\u2019t that good,\u201d I say, \u201cAnd the book I\u00a0read before that was actually recommended to me by you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDeath Comes for the Archbishop<\/a>,\u201d he says. \u201cA banger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not what I would write if\u00a0I\u00a0was asked to provide a blurb for a\u00a0future edition,\u201d I say. \u201cBut yes, it was\u00a0good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy train goes in 12 minutes,\u201d he\u00a0says.<\/p>\n \u201cWait here,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n I go to the living room and, with uncharacteristic luck, immediately locate a particular hardback.<\/p>\n \u201cTry this,\u201d I say. \u201cI read it when it came out. It\u2019s like a period thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhich period?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat am I, a historian?\u201d I say. \u201cOlden times.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHuh,\u201d he says, examining the cover.<\/p>\n \u201cLike a period thing, but funny, and good,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n He pulls his Kindle from his bag, taps in the title and hands the book back to me.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll give it a go,\u201d he says, heading for the front door.<\/p>\n This feels like an important moment: the start of an era in which my counsel is both sought and heeded. I go in search of the middle one, thinking I might recommend Death Comes for the Archbishop to him, but he\u2019s not home.<\/p>\n I open the not-that-good book I am currently reading \u2013 which I have nearly finished \u2013 and think: what\u2019s the point?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fifteen minutes later I receive a cryptic text from the oldest one. I read it over twice, but it makes no sense. Eventually it dawns on me that it must\u00a0be a quotation from the book I\u00a0recommended to him, an example of the olden times language employed.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n I pick up the book from the kitchen table and begin reading. After a few minutes I find the exact words from the text message, on\u00a0page eight. But by then my mouth is hanging open in horror.<\/p>\n \u201cI remembered not one thing about it,\u201d I tell my wife later. \u201cNot one character, not one name, nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never remember much about books I\u2019ve read,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just that,\u201d I say. \u201cThere was stuff I did remember about the first chapter that is absolutely not in there, that must be from a different book.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt happens,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going around recommending books to people,\u201d I say. \u201cBooks I may as well not have read.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re old,\u201d my wife says. \u201cGet over it.\u201d<\/p>\n But I can\u2019t get over it. In bed that night I lie awake, staring at the spines of the books on my nightstand, trying to remember a single salient fact about any of them. I imagine a blurb on the back of a paperback that says, \u201cLike a period thing, but funny, and good.\u201d The cumulative knowledge, understanding and wisdom of all the books I have ever read has ceased to exist, I think, or at any rate does not abide in me.<\/p>\n I open the not-that-good book I am currently reading \u2013 which I have nearly finished \u2013 and think: what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n Four days later I am at the airport, sitting on a plastic chair near the Pret with my wife and three other couples. It is the shoulder season, when old people go on holiday together. Everyone at the airport is our age.<\/p>\n Soon we discuss books: books we have read, or are reading, or might read, or might recommend.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about this archbishop who dies, eventually,\u201d I say. \u201cNot much happens before that, but it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately no one is listening to me. Someone else mentions a title that strikes a faint chime in the hazy recesses of my brain.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that the blue one?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cover is blue, yes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cAh,\u201d I say, reaching into my bag. \u201cI\u00a0am also reading the blue one.\u201d<\/p>\n Join Tim Dowling<\/strong> at a special Guardian Live event<\/a> on Wednesday 26 November. The evening of Guardian culture will be hosted by Nish Kumar and include Georgina Lawton, who will host a live You be the judge, and Meera Sodha. Live in London or via livestream, book tickets here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The oldest one is recommending the book he\u2019s just finished to me. \u201cYou should read this,\u201d he says,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-278702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115319616555462214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}