Paul Krugman on Books

I don't care for Paul Krugman's ideas on economics, but I do appreciate his thoughts on books.  From the Boston Globe, he made two points with which I agree 100 percent:

Paul Krugman: The thing with gadgets — I have a Kindle and an iPad — is that I tend to have several things going at once. I’m reading “City of Fortune” by Roger Crowley, which is about Venice and its glory centuries. I’ve been reading David McCullough’s “The Greater Journey,” about Americans abroad in the 19th century. I like it but can only read it in short snatches for some reason. I’ve also been reading “Caesar” by Adrian Goldsworthy. In recent years I’ve read a couple of Roman things, including “Rubicon” by Tom Holland, about the fall of the Roman republic. I found that in a bookstore. The problem with digital books is that you can always find what you are looking for but you need to go to a bookstore to find what you weren’t looking for.

I agree. I frequent small, independent bookstores, and I particularly enjoy used book stores, and discount book stores. I seldom visit the "big box" book stores any more. And when I find books at the mom-and-pop independent bookstores I tend to buy them there, and try very hard not to buy from Amazon if possible. There are notable exceptions. 

The second point Krugman makes:

Paul Krugman: There isn’t much current stuff I really like. The authors I do [like] seem to be mostly Scots or Brits, ...

Elsewhere I have said the same thing: I appreciate English, Scottish, and (rarely) Irish artists best.

And I seldom read any "current" literature. I think I've talked about that before also. In fact, while visiting a bookstore in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I struck up a conversation with the proprietor and we, interestingly enough, had the same reason for not reading current literature.