thinking about reading

Bonaparte wouldn't look at his mail any sooner than two weeks after it had been delivered, believing that the news he needed would get to him when he most needed it. He threw most of his mail away, unopened.

(Not sure what constituted mail in the early 19th century, though the news can be imagined.)

Literature is "news that stays news", acc. Ezra Pound, which speaks to the qualities of the difference between reading a real book and reading the daily newspaper, even as good a newspaper as The New York Times, and why brooding over Hamlet's plight provides information that applies to any number of current situations in the world, though wondering whatever happened to Judith Miller may be worth a few minutues of your time (apparently she's fine and blogging for right-wing news outlets.)

If a young man were to read The Red and the Black once every two years to the end of his life, or a woman Anna Karenina, certain behaviors might change for the better...

The question to ask those worth asking may not be 'what were you thinking' as 'what are you reading'?

Not sure Bonaparte read books, though Tolstoy made the most of him.