Local Newspaper Columns

David Rodeback’s columns for local newspapers, the American Fork Citizen and the Lehi Free Press, on books, reading, bookstores, etc.

Bookstore Memories

Posted on by David Rodeback

A teenage son and I were at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, a recurring pilgrimage. I was browsing in Fiction when his distress call came.

He was half a building away, lurking in his favorite subsection of History. He had filled an entire basket with books to buy, and he needed help.

To his credit, he already knew he needed two kinds of help. He needed time to reduce his selections to a manageable stack of several. That took him most of an hour. Then he would still need more funds than he’d saved for books. He solicited and quickly received contributions from bookish family members, and he came away with a heartwarming but reasonable stack of books.

I like to listen to people in bookstores. I’ve overheard one sort of conversation many times, especially at used bookstores. The child in it can be a first-grader or a teen, and it goes about the same.

Reading Aloud Is for Adults Too

Posted on by David Rodeback

Wednesday, February 5, was the 15th Annual World Read Aloud Day. Its creator, LitWorld, focuses mostly on the benefits of reading aloud to children. Good reasons for doing that reach far beyond language skills and a lifelong love of books.

The benefits of reading aloud for youth and adults get far less attention, but they’re real. I don’t mean just reading a witty or scandalous social media post or a short excerpt of an article. I mean reading entire essays, stories, even books aloud.

Granted, reading aloud can be bad manners—on a train, plane, or quiet library floor, or anywhere else we would disturb people to whom we’re not reading. And it’s slower. There’s not time to read all the books anyway. We’d compound that problem if we always read aloud.

Poke the Algorithms in the Eye: Read Books in 2025

Posted on by David Rodeback

Intricate modern algorithms have their place but don’t seem to know their place. They and their faceless custodians would rule, not serve, the world, and never mind the human cost. Some people blame algorithms for our intellectual, political, and cultural bubbles and the toxic tribalism that results. I blame them too, in part.

Social media algorithms would rather please or provoke than inform or connect. They aim to keep us scrolling, clicking, sharing, flaming, and otherwise engaging at the expense of everything else, including work, family, friends, neighbors, quiet introspection, real-world compassion, and calm perspective.

Amazon’s algorithm, understandably, likes to show me things I might buy. It’s not very clever sometimes. A good half of those “We’ve found a book you’ll love” e-mails point me to books I found myself, online or IRL, and already added to my Amazon wish lists. I don’t remember the last time I loved any of the other suggestions.