So, fellow readers, do you remember a time when you knew that you were a hopeless bookworm?

For me, it happened in college.  When I completed my final exam for the semester, do you know how I treated myself?  Not with a big pitcher of beer or a large pizza.  No, I went to the university bookstore and bought all my books for the next semester. I know, in retrospect, I sound an awful lot like Hermione in Harry Potter.  But, there was something about walking up and down the rows of books, looking over what I would read next semester.  While this semester, I may have skated by or not learned enough or had boring classes, next semester, it would all be different.  Those books represented possibility.

Even though I’m a little older and wiser these days, I still love to visit university bookstores.  I like to check out what others are teaching, and I still wonder if I’ll find something really clever or interesting.  A few weeks ago, while on a visit to Virginia State University, I did find a fun book on the textbook shelves: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. This clever little volume takes philosophical concepts like “empiricism” or “post hoc ergo propter hoc,” gives a brief summary, and illustrates the concept with a joke.  Some of the jokes are real howlers, but they do help illuminate the idea.

For example, while explaining Plato’s ideal virtues of the individual in The Republic, the authors briefly define Wisdom as Plato’s understanding of “the Idea of the Good.”  Then, they offer this joke:

At a meeting of the college faculty, an angel suddenly appears and tells the head of the philosophy department, “I will grant you whichever of three blessings you choose: Wisdom, Beauty — or ten million dollars.”

Immediately, the professor chooses Wisdom.

There is a flash of lightning, and the professor appears transformed, but he just sits there, staring down at the table.

One of his colleagues whispers, “Say something.”

The professor says, “I should have taken the money.”

OK, perhaps not the funniest joke ever, but it does drive home the importance of Wisdom to Plato, since that’s what the professor immediately chooses.

If you’re looking to brush up on philosophy or struggling through a course now, I think this is a great volume to dip into once in a while.

Now, I want to know, when did you know that you were a bookworm?  :)