Death of reading

[Aviragus at aol.com]

As a child I was an avid reader and was advised to start a book and always
finish it completely before starting another book.  I took this as gospel and
in an oddly undiscriminating way never put down a book without finishing it.
 this took me through about my 19th year when I had finished V and GR.  (I am
39 to answer tevans)it was  around the age of 20 that I  began to break my
rule of finishing every bookbefore starting another and have trained myself
perhaps too effectively to engage in pastiche reading.  
Our experience with the media  (TV etal) is based on fragments of info being
delivered in bursts  (look at mailing lists) so that reading a demanding book
from beginning to end becomes antithetical to our notion of experience
itself.  Being that the ruptured delivery has become so powerful in
manipulating conciousnees thru ads etc., isn't TRP effective because he
engages in fragmentation but demands(or insinuates) that we engage in total
immersion  in order for the the pot of gold ( unifying knowledge,real or
imagined) to be attained? Has TRP like so many charismatic leaders before him
engaged in effective manipulation without delivering the pot??