Missing John Leonard

Today's L. A. Times has a review of the collected writings of John Leonard, who died in 2008 and who said that, after being numbed by pop culture, we go to books to complicate ourselves.

What a lovely notion! Surely part of the goal of my recent novel is to "complicate" the reader with dramatic actions that raise interesting questions. But this use of books was more true in the past than now, when books themselves have become a mainstay of pop culture. I think this is especially true with the rise of ebooks and ereaders. As one observer recently noted, you can read erotic on an ereader and no one knows -- and the same is true of any kind of genre writing (not that readers were ever embarrassed to read these).

Hopefully there's a flip side to this, books that complicate us becoming available more easily as well.

I miss John Leonard. He always had something to say that made me think and reflect on his meaning.