In the past, when I’ve finished a good book, I have felt adrift. Unable to wrap my head around how to get started on the next book. And usually, I just float around for a month or so before bumping up into whatever that next book happens to be.
Two years ago I decided I wanted to read more. More accurately, I wanted to try and be the sort of person who read anything other than reddit comments and the occasional work related bit of business. I started with a book on the shelf called “American Buffalo”. The book is apparently well thought of and has good reviews so rather than contradict them or speak ill of the author, I’ll just say “it wasn’t for me”.
What I should have done is put the book down and read something else. What I did was force myself to finish it — over an excruciating 2 months. Apart from being a rather painful exercise in confidence building, finishing the book wasn’t a particularly useful activity. To read more, I should have closed the book.
Last year I allowed myself to close books that weren’t for me and found that I didn’t finish almost as many books as I did the entire year before.
This year I’m allowing myself to have more than one book open at once. If it’s ok to stop reading a book, perhaps it’ll also be ok to drift from one to another depending on how I feel.
📗 📆 Meditations for Mortals - Oliver Burkeman
📗 🔖 ❌The End Of Burnout- Jonathan Malesic📗 🔖 Writings - Agnes Martin
📗 🔖 I Walk Between the Raindrops - T.C. Boyle
📗 📆 The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday
📗 🔖 Slow Horses - Mick Herron
📗 🔖 Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil DeGrasse Tyson
📗 🔖 Metaphonics, The Field Works Listener’s Guide - Stuart Hyatt
📗 🔖 The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday
Will this experiment result in more books read at the end of the year? Or will I find myself stumbling along a barren wasteland of forgotten tomes filled with unfinished business?
🤷♀️
What about you, what are you reading? Do you keep multiple bookmarks? Does it work?
I wish I had all the money
We used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
And I wouldn't sell any of 'em
I'd just drive a different car every day
Dependin' on how I feel
- Tom Waits
It’s a good mix of daily meditations, self-help, short-form, long-form, high-brow, and low-brow. All that’s missing is some comics - and I have the entire box set of Tintin that I’ve been meaning to dig into to fill that gap.
Some I’ll never pick up again. Others are still bookmarked.
Here are all the books I have open and one that I’ve closed.
Some, never to pick up again. Others, with a bookmark to which I hope to return. Last year I didn’t finish almost as many books as I read in total the year before.
What about you? Do you have too many pokers in the fire? Or do you have singular focus from start to finish?
that just isn’t doing it for me
And I did read more - 4 times more!
But rather than putting it down to read something else, I forced myself to finish it - over an excruciating 2 months. Apart from being a rather painful exercise in confidence building, I don’t think it was a particularly useful activity. To read more, I should have closed the book.
I think I’m gonna try and following my inspiration for a bit. There is great value in finishing what you start, but sometimes it’s equally useful to know when to let something go.
Am I just lazy? A worthless layabout?
I think the important thing at the moment is to be comfortable to putting things down. There is great value in finishing things to be sure. But having spent decades forcing myself to finish things I no longer cared for,
I’m not sure it a particularly useful activity.
Two things that made reading fun again:
1. Closing books I no longer wanted to read
2. Reading what I liked instead of what I felt like I should be reading
I've never read more.
I have such a hard time closing books. I so easily succumb to the desire to read a certain number of books a year that I worry about losing the time invested in book by stopping and starting another instead. Which makes no sense, especially if the overall point is enjoyment. The metrics are irrelevant, but such is my obsessive brain. But I've managed to put down a few more books than usual, I'd call that progress.
Looks like a great book pile. Definitely excited to see you've got slow horses. I just finished the third book in the series hoping to start the fourth soon. Hope you like it. The DeGrasse Tyson book I listened to on audio, otherwise it might have been a book I would have put down. I found it a little slow and forgettable. The Daily Stoic is a book I should have closed. Although I read it as intended; one section on the assigned day. It started becoming tedious and redundant for me. By the time I made it to the end of the year I was beyond over it. The Obstacle is the Way and Meditations for Mortals are both my list, I'll be curious to hear what you think of them.