Last year I attended a business seminar out of town. On the first day during lunch I found myself seated with five other guys roughly my age who come from worlds very different than my own. To wit:  When I said that I read between one to two books a week, they gasped. They couldn’t believe it. Some of their questions:

•  “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• and, most penetratingly, “WHY?”

Because, you see, these guys didn’t just read fewer books than I do. They read NO books. Ever. Every one of them seemed smart and successful, but they read no books. Ever.

(In fairness, I watch no sports. Ever. Even in bars.)

Today on the LA Times’ site I came across this interview with someone who read 462 books last year. No, that’s not a typo. Four hundred and sixty-two last year. (So far this year, she’s above 10 books. And today is January 9th.) Reading this, my questions were remarkably familiar:

• “When do you have time?”
• “What kind of books?”
• “How do you pick what books you’re going to read or not?”
• “WHY?”

My immediate reaction was, “Well, certainly she isn’t retaining much.” But then I tried to remember the plot of the Brad Meltzer book I read two years ago and couldn’t. (What I could remember were the plot twists I saw coming from miles away — which says less about my cleverness than it does about my glee at the time about being right.) Is this Meltzer’s fault or mine? Probably both, but somewhat more Meltzer’s:  there wasn’t a memorable character in the book, and novels should be about people. Checking out Meltzer’s site also helped me feel better about this, because even after looking at the titles of his novels I couldn’t pick out the one I’d read, and even after reading the plot descriptions it was a toss-up until I remembered that the book involved brothers in a bank. Meltzer, who seems like a nice guy and who is a very successful writer with legions of fans, isn’t writing books for me. So I don’t find them memorable.

On the other end of the spectrum, I can remember large swatches of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” and “Everyman,” as well as Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men” and “All the Pretty Horses,” all of which I read in the same timeframe. So I’m not slipping into dementia.

I have to wonder if it’s good to read 462 books in one year. This would certainly help me tidy up my nightstand, where the stack of “books in waiting” has seemingly through meiosis become the two stacks of books in waiting.  I’m almost finished with the biography of Brian Eno (invaluable, although written by a sycophant) and the Inhumans graphic novel “Silent War,” I’ve made a good start on Julian Barnes’ latest (a meditation on death), and I’ve got only two stories left to read in the T.C. Boyle collection “Tooth and Claw.” But that still leaves the histories of Germany under the Nazis, the history of the Roman Empire, and God knows what’s waiting at the bottom. (And, atop it all, is last week’s New Yorker with Barnes’ latest short story, which I’m halfway through.)

But if I could read all of this times 60 in the course of one year, would any of it prove to be notable? And what would be the rest of the price paid? In 1795, someone named J.G. Heinzmann listed the physical consequences of excessive reading: “susceptibility to colds, headaches, weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria, and melancholy.”

Ouch.

No, this isn’t Spider-Man’s newest arch-nemesis. This is actually a well-known long-time fan who finally made the cover. I can’t wait to see what Scott Shaw! has to say about this.

I truly must be the only Democrat not attending the inauguration, given that even fictional characters now seem to be going.

You’ll see why in just a moment. (Brace yourself.)

Sam Shepard was arrested yesterday in Illinois for drunk driving. According to news reports, his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit. I don’t have any sympathy for drunk drivers, and I hope that if Shepard is convicted a judge won’t either.

But what I really want to talk about is this mug shot, which propels Shepard into the rarified ranks that include, say, Nick Nolte.

Well, he certainly looks drunk. And I know we all age (if we’re lucky). But my first thought after seeing this was about potential future roles for Sam. It now occurs to me that if Sam Shepard writes a sequel to “True West” (as Albee wrote a prequel to “The Zoo Story”), then Shepard seems perfectly disposed to play Dad. Because he looks like a toothless old man who lives in the desert. Yes, Sam Shepard, early action playwright and former hipster and lover to Patti Smith has become… a coot.

Congress insisted that U.S. automakers present a plan for solvency before it would approve a bailout — and then didn’t approve the bailout anyway. Which I was actually cheered by. Then Ford decided it didn’t need a bailout, and again I was glad — partly because I drive a Ford (a Mustang convertible) and would hate to feel dragged down by association into bailout-hood. If there is no longer a stigma in insolvency, we should create one anew.

My first problem with the proposed automotive bailout was that it treated all three of the U.S. manufacturers the same, even though their circumstances were very different.

Ford makes a good car — a number of good cars — that have been selling very well, especially that Mustang and the Focus and the F-150 truck. Yes, Ford may have too many brands right now (Mazda? Volvo?), but the company has cash reserves and was making money. Ford’s problem was the sudden credit freeze of the second half of last year. The near-collapse of the economy panicked most buyers, and those who were left standing couldn’t get access to credit. That left only the people who were going to pay cash for a car — and as we know, those people live in China.

Chrysler is owned by venture capitalists. Here’s what VCs do: They make many bets in the marketplace, and some pay off and some do not. VCs seek a return of 10-to-20 times their investment, and they like to get in, and then get out, of these bets. So when the Germans (Daimler) were losing a bundle on Chrysler, Cerberus did what VCs do — they picked it up cheap and tried to turn it around quickly so they could unload it with a huge return. Unfortunately, they made a very bad bet. Why you and I should be forced to finance their mistake is unfathomable to me. We’re certainly not going to share in any good investments Cerberus made in the past. To really nail home the point, let me note that as a non-public company, Cerberus is incapable of issuing any stock to the U.S. government as a way of paying back the investment (if that were ever even to happen). Chrysler should just be allowed to fail.

Which brings us to GM. Compared to the rest of the marketplace, they don’t make good cars; even if you believe they do, almost no one else does, so that perception becomes the reality. Their manufacturing and marketing is remarkably inefficient. Compared against Toyota, whose sales are almost equal in the U.S., GM has about one-third too many dealerships. And their chief executive is an utter failure who lacks the good grace to go away. Bankruptcy might actually be a good option for GM, so long as the company emerges from it. Because GM is so large, and directly or indirectly employs so many people, that the idea of GM simply vanishing from the economy ought to give us all shudders.

So:  three very different situations.

But why write about this now? Wasn’t the failed auto bailout big post-election story of November?

That brings me to my second problem with the idea of running to the rescue of the automakers. While they did come up with plans that at least claimed to lead to financial success, all their new design ideas seemed retrograde:  Please save us and we’ll build hybrids and we’ll expand research into electric cars. How 2004. Remember when great American companies championed innovation? You don’t hear much of that coming out of Detroit.

So today I stumbled upon this in the New York Times:  some actual forward-thinking ideas of what U.S. automakers could build into their cars to make them more attractive. They include:

• dedicated short-range communication that could prevent accidents
• robot-controled driving to improve traffic flow and reduce emissions
• solar cells to reduce dependence on gasoline
• built-in smart-phone technology (if the car can drive itself, you can check your email)

These technologies already exist. And they sound like the sort of thing that Barack Obama means to invest in when he talks about putting money into infrastructure. This is what Detroit should be asking for — the proverbial hand up instead of the hold up (“Give us money or we’re going to close, and  you’ll be sorry.”).

Of course you want a panoramic view of Times Square on New Year’s Eve. So click here to see that. (You can also check out Glasgow, Sydney, and other locations — although for some reason evidently not Egg Harbor City, NJ.) The accompanying text says that the temperature at Times Square was one degree fahrenheit. Given the bare hands and bare legs on some of the women, I’m skeptical. (Although I know the credo:  “Anything to look good.”)

While my wife and I were celebrating New Year’s Eve hosting a dinner party for seven friends, my good friend Doug Hackney was in a surgical suite watching his wife get a small chunk of her back removed.  Here’s why.