Reading More Than One Book Vs One at a Time
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The fence: how many books should you have on the get at once?
Should you stick to reading ane book at a time, or waltz betwixt several? Two writers hash it out over electronic mail.
From: Sam Parker
To: Alice Vincent
Subject: How many books to read at in one case
Dearest Alice,
The look on your face last month when I mentioned that I simply e'er read one book at a time has been haunting me e'er since. And there really was no reason to drop your drinking glass of wine quite then dramatically (though I take the waiter stumbling into your chair may have played his office). In any case, the chat moved on rather also quickly for me to mount an adequate defence of my position, so I thought I'd email you then as not to allow the matter fester. As well: I'm a piddling bored self-isolating.
Anyway, my central statement is thus. To produce a book, a writer must – to paraphrase i rather unfashionable novelist from the 1960s whom you no dubiousness hate – sit down at a typewriter andbleed. Despite never having written a (*coughing* published *cough*) novel myself, I rather subscribe to this idea.
Therefore I recollect it'due south of import to give any writer my undivided attending. Anything else would be rather like listening to someone confide their hopes, dreams and innermost fears to you, then stopped them mid sentence to chat with someone else. In other words: rather rude.
Yours singularly,
Sam
From: Alice Vincent
To: Sam Parker
Field of study: Re: How many books to read at once
Sam!
So prissy to see you, I practise promise the wine came out of your shirt? It was definitely the waiter'south fault.
I was only surprised, is all. Life is short, and decorated, and total of many things we juggle simultaneously: several Netflix series, for example, or sending a Tweet in the bath. I started reading multiple books at one time out of sheer practicality. At academy, I had almost iii on the go per week, and was e'er leaving a different paperback in another pocketbook (you'll think, of course, what an snappy dresser I was).
Sure, it's a balancing act. I must learn how to fall into unlike worlds without losing your way (scribbling crib notes inside front covers helps considerably – in pencil, of course), but I disagree that to separate your attention is to lessen information technology.
If anything, I started to realise the joys and benefits of reading several books at once. How you can build perspectives by, say, reading Virginia Woolf's diaries at the aforementioned time as the fiction she wrote, or two books that bounce off one another, like EM Forster'sHoward'southward Stop and On Beauty, Zadie Smith's riff on information technology.
I'm still to exist convinced by all this bleeding typewriter guff. What does information technology bring yous? And what if you're terribly bored of a book y'all were determined to plod through without lark?
Always multi-facetedly,
Alice
From: Sam Parker
To: Alice Vincent
Bailiwick: Re: re: How many books to read at once
Hello Alice,
In time-honoured internet debating tradition, I'm going to completely ignore the many salient points you lot've just fabricated and focus instead on one pocket-sized part I disagree with. Wow – this is then much more fun than talking to each another in a pub or a sunny park, isn't it?!
'What if you're terribly bored of a volume?', you enquire. There, for me, is the rub. As nosotros both know, sometimes the novels most worth reading are a difficult slog. For every sea-soaked take chances with Ishmael and his giant Dick, we must endure pages on the effectively details of mid nineteenthCentury whaling techniques (and then forth).
Leaving books open up to the paralysis of option that now afflicts every other area of life (accept y'all tried even choosing a bottle of shampoo lately?) simply makes it more than probable nosotros'll throw the towel in on any read that challenges us. Reading shouldn't be like skipping through popular tracks on Spotify or the faces of sad, lonely strangers on Swivel. It should exist something more like going for long, ho-hum walk in a forest, or something. Without your phone on you lot.
What does my strict one in / one out bedside policy bring me? Calmness. Can't we keep just 1 area of life simple?
Yours whimsically
Sam
From: Alice Vincent
To: Sam Parker
Field of study: Re: re: re: How many books to read
Whimsical Sam,
How funny that you should cull that Old White Whale for this chat. I both relished and hated that book, merely only survived Melville'southward mission to demonstrate his cetology because I was balancing information technology with Jilly Cooper tomes for light relief.
Yes, in these aimlessly scattered days of information overload it is nice to bask in just the one creative try, but information technology would be quite peculiar to utilize it to, say, but watching one television series at a time.
Curious, besides, that you lot cite Ahab'due south hunt for a murderous mammal. After all, monomania hardly got that old seadog anywhere, did information technology?
Perchance the only solution to this is to both endeavor the other's way of reading? I'll give up my current pile (If I Had Your Face past Frances Cha, a 1984 edition of Hortus journal and Anne Enright's Actress – I'm still working out the connections betwixt them, which is part of the fun) for one singular, new read of your option, and I'll throw some your way?
I expect forward to witnessing your conversion!
Alice
From: Sam Parker
To: Alice Vincent
Subject: Re: re: re: re: How many books to read
Dear Alice,
Challenge accepted. This night I shall remove the single, pristine, copy of Kafka's Contemplation that is currently by my reading chair, toss an armful of random books all over it. Then I'll sit and gorge, page to page, line to line, like a dog sniffing around a rubbish tip, or a pig dippling for truffles. Allow's run across if I emerge more aware.
Alternatively, nosotros could ask people reading this to vote. Do they read 1 book at a time, or have several on the go at once?
They are reading this, right?
How many books do you have on the go at in one case? Let united states of america know by emailing editor@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk.
Source: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/mar/reading-books-one-at-a-time-several-at-once.html
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