It's nice to have a devoted reader.

A bit beyond the halfway point in Manjoo's approximately 2000 word article he writes:

We’re getting deep on the page here, so basically only my mom is still reading this. (Thanks, Mom!)

Considering that Manjoo is bemoaning the fact that few readers get to the end of even a moderately long article, I can well understand that he finds a bit of solace in the fact that at least his mother reads what he writes. At about the 90% mark of his piece he makes a rather awkward confession about how little of what he reads (or even watches on television) he actually finishes, and he notes that he can safely make this confession because at this point in the article even his mother has stopped reading.

Eight years ago I acknowledged that my mother was a devoted (if not actually avid) reader of the Boidem, though she preferred to read a printed version. A number of years ago already I lost that devoted reader so I can't check whether she, unlike Mangoo's mother, actually read to the end of each column. My guess is that she did - but only because she thought that if her son wrote it, even if it's not really interesting, it's probably "good".

Go to: How to read a Boidem column.