credit: (CC) Flickr - Mick 0
Are you looking for more ways to combine drinking with your reading life? (Hey—it’s summer.) This past week, the internet has overflowed with suggestions:
First, from Jezebel, there’s “Drink ‘Til He’s Witty: The Reader’s Drinking Game.” Some suggested rules, depending on which author you’re reading:
- David Foster Wallace: Drink every time a sentence has three or more conjunctions.
- Jane Austen: Drink every time someone plays whist, goes riding, or gets married.
- Gabriel García Márquez: Drink every time someone’s name is “Aureliano.” (Note: this only works for A Hundred Years of Solitude)
Or, if you prefer to drink while mourning the end (?) of fiction, the universe, and everything, there’s the E-books article drinking game:
- “Will e-books wipe out/kill/decimate/pulverize/HULKSMASH/angry verb real books?” — one drink
- Expert you’ve never heard of before predicting percentages — one drink
- Any predicted percentage of anything over 30% — one drink
- Reminder that some people read in the bathtub or on the beach and assertion that e-readers/physical books are superior in this regard — two drinks
And finally, an essay from author Geoff Nicholson on how the rules for writing and drinking aren’t really that different:
Write what you know. Write every day. Never use a strange, fancy word when a simple one will do. Always finish the day’s writing when you could still do more. With a little adaptation these rules apply just as well for drinking. Drink what you know, drink regularly rather than in binges, avoid needlessly exotic booze, and leave the table while you can still stand.
Or are they?
Somebody tells you not to mix Zima with Drambuie, somebody says that rewriting Icelandic myths in the style of Candace Bushnell is a really bad idea, but you may feel compelled to go ahead and do it anyway.
Happy Friday, everyone.
