Books for Dipping Into: Browsing, Learning, and Fun

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Scattered about on my bookshelves are a couple of atlases, four volumes of quotations, six poetry anthologies, collections of esoteric subjects ranging from newspaper obituaries to a non-encyclopedia, and stray compendiums like “The Columbian Orator” and a two-volume set of Civil War military correspondence.

Add to these similar books that I keep for the edification and enjoyment of my grandchildren—several of the excellent DK books, a set of the old “My Book House,” collections of verses for the young, three volumes of fairy tales, and so on—and you have an inventory of what I call my dipper books.

These are books I generally dip into for two reasons: pleasure or inspiration. Sometimes, when I have a few spare moments or find myself in search of some diversion, I’ll open a dipper book for some instant entertainment. In addition, if I need bucking up or am at a bit of a loss as to what to write next, I’ll open some hefty package of print like “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” and strike on some spark of inspiration.

And dipper books can do the same for you.

Back Road Adventures

You’re zipping down the highway at 75 mph, crest a hill, and find yourself approaching a horrendous traffic jam. You have just enough time to whip off at the exit and take a secondary road paralleling the expressway. You follow the road and your GPS, and now, instead of passing through a bland countryside of billboards and warehouses, you’re in a different country altogether, a route taking you through small towns and farm land, past historic markers, country stores, and Mom n’ Pop restaurants. Your blood pressure drops back to normal at this slower speed, and the detour soon causes your irritation to give way to enjoyment.

Looking up information online versus exploring a dipper book offers this same contrast.

When we need some specific information, most of us hop on the internet highway, which makes sense. Here the attorney can quickly locate some arcane point of law, the cook a recipe for Colcannon Potatoes, the student a thumbnail biography of Lord Nelson. But every once in a while, if we exchange that online freeway for an excursion into a dipper book, we can suddenly find ourselves encountering treasures that would have escaped our attention on a digital drive.

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If, for example, I wanted to find out what bodies of water surround Japan, I could with a few keystrokes on my laptop summon up that information, and there my quest would end. On the other hand, if I instead opened the gigantic 1999 “National Geographic Atlas of the World” which I picked up for a pittance at our library’s book sale last year, I would thumb past a dozen countries and maps before finding what I needed.

Dipper books thus offer broad vistas compared to the tunnel vision of digital driving. They afford us the opportunity to slow down and enjoy some off the beaten path excursions. Moreover, they are particularly important for the learning and diversions they provide for the young.

A Playground for the Mind

On the long, hot Carolina afternoons of my boyhood, I would sit in the den and read at random from the World Book Encyclopedia my parents had purchased. In the fall, the Sears catalog would arrive, and again I passed time browsing its hundreds of pages, looking not just at possible Christmas gifts but at everything else as well.

Today, when my grandchildren visit, some of them will entertain themselves with Calvin and Hobbes, with the two Norman Rockwell albums my wife bought many years ago, or with such books as “The Best of Reader’s Digest” and John MacDonald’s “Great Battles of World War II.” One 6-year-old grandson, clearly a budding bibliophile, will spend many minutes on the floor by picture books of art and history.

Like the encyclopedia and catalog of my youth, these dippers offer an education not found on the internet. They invite randomness, variety, and meandering, much like play itself. Keeping collections like these on hand is a great way for parents and others to entertain kids while educating them at the same time.

Sightseeing

Here’s a specific example of the way a dipper book works.

Suppose you or one of the kids want to identify the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. You put the term into the search engine on your laptop or phone, and several lists describing these manmade structures immediately pop up.

Now, suppose you instead open Peter D’Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish’s “What Are the Seven Wonders of the World? And 100 Other Great Cultural Lists—Fully Explicated.” You open the book at random, as I did, and find “Question 4: Who Are the 3 Daughters of King Lear?” You flip ahead a hundred pages or so to “Question 36: What are the 5 Pillars of Islam?” Flip again, and this time you’ve gone too far, landing on “Question 63: What are the 7 Deadly Sins?” Here you pause to see how many apply to you—hmmmm, the answer isn’t good—then you backtrack and finally land on the Wonders of the World.

Whether we’re looking in Bartlett’s for a Churchill quote, in a National Geographic atlas for the countries bordering Hungary, or in “The Best Loved Poems of the American People” for Edgar Guest’s “Home,” odds are that you’ll run across several tangential subjects that may catch your eye and give you pause for amusement or learning.

No one, least of all me, wants a return to a time when there was no digital highway, when seeking information of almost any kind meant research in a library, phone calls or snail-mail letters, or ordering a book on the topic. When we want information fast and efficiently, the internet simply can’t be beat. It literally brings a world of knowledge into our homes.

But if we want to leave that highway and roam some backroads, dipper books are the way to go. Instead of a straight shot to a destination, we mosey along, enjoying the sights and taking pleasure in what each new turn in the road brings to us.