Hi ,
How important is fiction? To you, to the world, to society? Some people might think fiction is just escapist and it's got nothing to do with the real world. And it certainly can be escapist. But good fiction can it inform you about the world, even though it's a made-up story. What can you learn from a world by the fiction that comes from those worlds?
For example, reading some of the great Russian authors such as Tolstoy, Pushkin, Solzhenitsyn, Nabakov and other gives you an insight into Russian history and the daily lives of people in decades and centuries gone. Reading Philip Roth gives you insight into the life of Jewish people in New Jersey in mid-century. And so on.
I read a lot of fiction because it takes me away and expands my world. Stretches my horizons. Good storytellers have the ability to not only entertain, but inform and enlighten as well. They say history is written by the winners of wars, but fiction opens up all worlds. I say: Read more fiction!
This week, the TradeshowGuy Newsletter shares an interview with tradeshow marketing expert and author Francis Friedman, shares a guest post about choosing the best furniture at your tradeshow, and an article I wrote about how skeptical I was about tradeshow marketing when I entered this industry.
Soundtrack for this week's newsletter is
ON AIR from the
Rolling Stones. It's a collection of BBC tracks
from the Stones in the 60s, with "live" in-studio takes on a handful of their classics as well as some relatively unknown tunes. One thing I really love is their version of "Roll Over Beethoven," recorded for the BBC Show "Saturday Club." They also cover contemporary classics such as "Memphis," "Mercy Mercy," "Around and Around," "Route 66," "Carol" (their first single) and others. If you listen to the Beatles and the Stones and other early-to-mid 60s British bands, you can see how big an
influence Chuck Berry was.
This 1964 clip of the Stones racing their way through "Around and Around" still sends chills down my spine.
