In the meantime, here's a link to a recent interview of Neil Gaiman. One thing he said about comics caught my eye: "It is not a genre. It is simply a medium."
Meanwhile, I've been browsing through a book called Jane Austen: Antipodean Views when my brain can't handle any more study (and sometimes when it can) and was struck by the insight of Tim Flannery, which actually stands out amongst the writings of English Professors, teachers and celebrities:
One of the most significant evolutionary forces currently acting is sexual selection. Women are much more selective than men, and the sort of trade-offs and carefully calculated estimations of worth of men in various capacities elucidated by Austen is, in some ways, as fine an evolutionary study as Darwin's, though it is admittedly only a single-species perspective.
Austen also investigates that eternal battleground between the mind and the genes that is humanity's unique affliction. Because the choices women are forced to make in this area are so much more onerous than men's, Austen's insights are piquant indeed.Unfortunately I can't link you to the book. I believe it's out of print.
Something else that's been in my procrastinatory thoughts is how my concept of having 'read a book' is changing as a result of my studies. I used to think that to have read a book I had to begin at page one and read it all the way through. While that still applies to fiction, I just don't think that way about non-fiction anymore. I can say, without a guilty conscience, that I have 'read' a non-fiction book as long as I feel I've read all the interesting and relevant bits.
Don't tell me I'm cheating. I am maximising my time.
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