What Do the Famous Read?

While Harry's gearing up for a weekend of heady posting, I'd thought I'd pop in on my "off day" to share a little something that made me smile.

I will shamefully admit that, at times, I am drawn to websites and blog that occasionally deal in, well, just say say celebrity news. I'm not proud of it...I know only too well the threat of being sucked into the water cooler vortex that is celebrity gossip, but the thing is they're just cool and hip and I know that if they just noticed me they'd think I was cool too and we could hang out and they would say to me, "gee Chris you're so cool why aren't you famous" and I'd sheepishly say, "Well you know that's not really my thing, Brad, and I'm sorry about that whole thing with Angelina you know, there were a lot of bubbles in the hot tub and how was I to know that all the champagne was going to lead to..."

Sorry. Lost myself there for a second. What I meant to say was I know it's a bad vice, but sometimes I can't help myself. But here's where it gets worse: one of the things I always look for when scanning through the articles or pictures is to see what, if anything, the famous are reading.

'Cause, you know...inquiring minds and all that.

And every so often you see a picture like the one that adorns the top of this post. Do you mean to tell me Kirsten Dunst is reading a frickin' Carl Sagan book? Really? Here's another shot:

Now I have nothing against Miss Dunst, who appears to be more bedraggled than her cigarette (ba dum bum!), but this all seems awfully calculated to me, like the time I walked around my college campus for a week carrying a stack of poetry books in the vain hope that a certain someone would notice, which she did, immediately after I dropped all the books when I walked into a concrete column. Here's another photo, this time of Angelina Jolie carrying Dave Eggers' What Is the What.

Look, maybe these folks are reading these books, but in my mind it's all exposure and lip service unless you actually get out there and espouse your views on what it is you're reading. And you know who does that?

That's right, us...the Geeks.

The other day I was checking out the hilarious music video promoting Felicia Day's 3rd season of The Guild which, if you haven't watched is a great web series about life, love, and World of Warcraft. But that's not the news. The news is that she reviews books on her blog! And guess which type of books? Fantasy, romance, romantic fantasy...starting to sound familiar? The point is here is a beautiful, fun, smart (I gush, but she's a crush, and my wife allows it) celebrity who not only walks the walk, but talks the talk.

Or is it the other way around? Is it better to walk the walk, or should I talk the talk instead? Is it a sign of senility that I can't remember? Regardless, you can check out all of her thoughts on books here.

And lest you think was all a ploy to post pictures of attractive women on the blog, allow me to introduce you to another famous geek who "puts his money where his mouth is" - an expression I can actually remember.

I've already gone on record about how much Wil Wheaton - self proclaimed Geek and a not-too-shabby writer himself - has influenced me as a fellow geek, a writer, a father, and an all-around good human being. But the dude also loves his bookage, and over at his long-running and outstanding blog you can find all sorts of reviews and comments on the stuff he reads, such as A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols (here), Hyperspace by Michio Kaku (here), and The Hacker Crackdown by sci-fi luminary Bruce Sterling (here).

By now you've probably discovered (as I have - this thing was sort of written spur of the moment) that I don't really have much of a point to this. It's just cool that out there are people just like us, obsessing over passions and loves and standing up to talk about them and spread the word.

But you already knew that, didn't you?

That's why we're here, and I for one am glad to be a part of it.