This Week in Reading
In which I confess my (book-related) sins
This Week in Reading
You know that feeling when you’ve put something off for too long, and then you feel so self conscious about the gap? You worry that people will look at whatever you bring forth and they’ll say, “all that wait for just… this?” I think it’s similar to the fear that kids have about returning to school after they’ve been sick for a couple of days.
That’s how I’ve felt about this newsletter. But I’ve decided to hang it all and just go with something light and easy and spontaneous.
On a positive note and something of an explanation, I did start a job recently. Which is wonderful news for our finances (well, it’s somewhat good news; not quite high paying enough to reach wonderful status), it’s been lousy for writing.
I have a myriad ways of procrastinating. When I was teaching, students would show up shamefaced about their late work as if they alone were guilty of such a heinous crime, and I would sometimes explain to them that procrastination is almost endemic among college students, even high achieving ones. It is true that some students do not procrastinate, but I am suspicious of them. I do not doubt them, but I am suspicious of the defect of character that allows them to always work before play. I suspect that science will discover the gene that causes these people to work with such singleminded focus, and they’ll come up with a cure. Someday.
I used to think that I would get better at working and avoiding procrastination when I was older. Having achieved older-ness, and having not shed myself of the urge to procrastinate, I presume that I’ll never be rid of it.
I’ve learned that the method of procrastination makes a big difference in how I feel about life. When I choose poorly (social media, YouTube, news), I feel lousy about myself, and I feel somewhat dire about the future. On days when I try to make it through the whole NYT main page in some weird misguided drive toward completionism, I will go to bed too late and feel like I’ve spent the day filling my belly with sand.
There are good ways to procrastinate, though. These secret to this was described by the writer Robert Bletchley: “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he’s supposed to be doing at the time.” I have that phrase inscribed on a little statuette I inherited from my grandfather. Words of wisdom.
Some days, my structured procrastination gets stuff done around the house. Those are good days. But on the really good days, I procrastinate with a book. It’s a sneaky one, because sitting with a book is something I like to do anyway, and I count it as both entertaining and virtuous.
Reading books is virtuous. It’s the path to wisdom. You become a better person by reading books. You don’t become a wealthier person, but who needs wealth?
Some people when they read a book start at the beginning and read through to the end. Which is a fine, if unimaginative, way to read. I do that sometimes. But that’s the exception.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself that I read a book out of order, skipping from chapter 2 to 17 to 6 to 3, and that’s absurd. Unless it’s a book of poetry or short stories or something. For a novel or a non-fiction book, that’s not the way I’m going to do it. The way I do it is to read the chapters in order, but with long, sometimes very long, stretches between chapters. In those long stretches, I will read other books.
An example: I started William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury sometime last year. After finishing the opening section about Benjy, I put the book down probably sometime back about September or so. I picked it up again this week, and started reading the next stream-of-consciousness section from Quentin’s perspective. Maybe I’ll power through to the end, or maybe I’ll pause it and stop for a couple of months or years before I finish.
When I wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 or 5:00 am I reach over and grab my kindle next to the bed and read for a bit. I have my scriptures on there, so I can read them first, and then I just follow my mood. In the afternoon or evening when I’ve got enough light, I will read paper books. At night when I lay down, I will sometimes use one of those little book lights that clip on a book’s cover and read paper books there. I like to read outdoors in the mornings and afternoons, and sometimes when I’m sitting at my desk and supposed to be doing something else.
Here’s what my reading looked like for this week:
Saturday:
Chapters from Numbers in the Old Testament and from 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
The Optimist by David Coggins
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Eventide by Kent Haruf
The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman (on audio)
Brown Dog by Jim Harrison
Friday:
Chapters in the Book of Mormon
“Up in Michigan” a short story by Hemingway
“My Old Man” the last of the short stories in Hemingway’s first published book.
Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
The Sound And The Fury by Faulkner
Some poems by Mark Strand
Thursday:
Some chapters in Numbers in the Old Testament
A couple of chapters in 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon
Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
“Out of season” one of the short stories by Hemingway from Nine Poems and Three Stories
The Sound And The Fury by Faulkner
“Anguish” the first short essay in David Whyte’s collection, Consolations II
The Wailing Wind by Tony Hillerman (on audio)
A few poems by Robert Penn Warren
Wednesday:
Chapters from the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament
Two chapters from Eventide by Kent Haruf
A couple of pages from Watchmen #1, just a couple of pages and I don’t know if this actually counts
About an hour of Middlemarch (on audio)
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Some poems by Robert Penn Warren
Tuesday:
Chapters from the OT and the BofM
The last 10% or so of Plainsong by Kent Haruf (finished)
You and a Bike and a Road by Eleanor Davis, which is a graphic novel and it’s great and it totally counts (finished)
All the Time in the World by John Gierach
The Optimist by David Coggins (why yes I am thinking about fishing again, how can you tell?)
Monday:
Scriptures, of course
Brown Dog by Jim Harrison
The Long Way by Bernard Moitssier
Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman (on audio) (finished)
Gringos by Charles Portis
Some poems by Robert Hass
In each case, I’ll put in at least 10 minutes, and sometimes an hour, before I switch to a different book. I do, sometimes, finish books pretty quickly. If it’s an audiobook and I’m enjoying it, I’ll listen every time I’m alone in the car or I’m walking around and cleaning up around the house or working in the yard. At 1.5x or 2x speed, I can finish a book in just a couple few hours. If the story has a lot of momentum, like I’m feeling with Johnson’s Train Dreams I’ll probably finish in the next couple of days. Some books, like say The Long Way I’ll probably never finish. And I’m ok with that, too.
Books of essays are prime never-finish books. I’ve been working on Brian Doyle’s One Long River of Song for a few years now, and I might never finish. And that’s a book I love. I’ve recommended it wholeheartedly to others. It’s great. You should read it. You can tell me how it ends. I’m not sure I’ve ever finished a book of Barry Lopez’s essays, even though I’ve bought a whole pile of them and I think they’re so, so, so good. What’s the benefit of finishing when I can just pick it up and read an essay and have the pleasure of a first read?
I can even do that with novels. I’m in the middle of who knows how many novels? On my kindle right now here’s part of what I would say I am currently reading:
On Love by Alain de Botton
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
The Birds by Terjei Vesaas
Exodus by Leon Uris
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Lieutenant Hornblower by C. S. Forester
The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
And that’s just the novels. And just the ones on the Kindle. And just the ones that I have not tossed aside (figuratively, because it’s very difficult to toss aside a book on a Kindle alas) because I didn’t like them. These are all books that I am enjoying.
So it’s difficult for me to answer the question “what are you reading?” Which is completely unfair because I ask that of other people all the time. I will sometimes tell them one of the books that I’ve picked up lately, or sometimes a book that I’ve finished lately. But it’s hardly accurate.
Speaking of which, what are you reading? Yes, you. What are you reading?
All is well,
Jeff
They Called Him Stonewall. Why am I compelled to finish books I start?