I’d Take the Million
In the February 1935 issue of Esquire magazine, an article by Ernest Hemingway appeared that was titled ‘Remembering Shooting-Flying: A Key West Letter.’ In it, Hemingway reeled off 17 books, all of which he “would rather read again for the first time [...] than have an assured income of a million dollars a year.”
I’ll take the million-dollar income. In fact, I’d take a guaranteed 50k income. I might even settle for public health insurance. #thisiswhyamericannovelssuck
Alex
March 8, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Oops, I didn’t read the headline. You already made that joke.
Alex
March 8, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Always one step ahead!
Honestly the bargain really doesn’t make sense to me. If it were “*Every* time you read this book it’s like it’s the first time” that at least would be something. But in this version I just get one more time reading the book as if it were the first time — then I’m back in the same position as I’m in now, minus the million dollars a year. Use your head, Ernest.
gerrycanavan
March 8, 2012 at 4:15 pm
It’s also probably pretty easy to say that you would prefer x to an assured income of 1 million dollars a year when you already have an assured income of many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Alex
March 8, 2012 at 8:58 pm
wait, really? i’m with hemingway here. though possibly because i read many of the books on that list when individual books still felt like life-changers, and long before graduate school sapped all my capacity to enjoy reading!
Lindsey
March 10, 2012 at 11:07 am
A million dollars a year is still a lot of money! I’d take the deal for half that.
gerrycanavan
March 10, 2012 at 11:12 am