Getting Caught Up with Current Events
I remember once getting this reference question from a patron at the public library. We were in the midst of the 2016 election cycle, and she wanted to know what book she could read to get caught up on current events.
That was a rather daunting question for me, and I told her so. And this is a long-form version of the response I gave her.
Getting caught up on current events will take some time. If you aren’t reading the news every day, you might only be picking up on some snippets of information from your social media, the people you talk to, chyrons along the TV screen, etc. Books can be helpful, but generally they’re published months if not years after the events. They may add context to the conversation, but they’re not quite current events.
So the first thing you need to do is commit to checking the news for current events! Keeping tabs on EVERYTHING is only going to burn you out, so I suggest a gradual integration of engaging with the news during a certain time, for a certain length of time. Maybe that’s first thing in your day, maybe that’s after dinner, maybe that’s during your lunch break. Maybe you give yourself ten minutes and see how things progress from there.
Once you’ve got your time commitment, what are you going to read? I have found Apple News to be a good place to peruse — you can…
