publications | -- ✄ - ✄ - the smallest forest - ✄

As I grow older I find that my consumption of literature has, along with other things, lost some of its former passion. When I was in high school I used to devour a book every couple of days (not all of them steamy romance novels, either,) curled up on a broken couch in the dusty attic of my parents’ house from mid-morning till the early hours of the following day. I know now that reading this way was a luxury of time and, perhaps, of youth: to be able to lose oneself for 30 uninterrupted hours in the world of the book—oblivious to hunger or thirst, my whereabouts unknown and unremarked by my family—and surrender myself to the delights, the feverish ideas, the anxieties, hot tears or disturbing sensuality that lay within each work.

At university my reading dropped to a book a week, mainly because I had less time to indulge in my passion, but also because the books were getting more complex, demanded more critical thought, more concentration; it wasn’t enough to let the story and its feelings flow over me: the novel had become a complex little machine of intricate connections, cogs ticking a riddle, secret switches and coded messages that pointed, in oblique ways, to things and ideas in the real world.

Nearing 40, I might be lucky to read a book a month. Work, a relationship, friends, other commitments as well as many, many new interests, jostle for blocks of time. I’m less stuck-up, now, about what I read…there was a time when I scorned science fiction, or popular works. I used to force myself to read only classics, even when they were boring and difficult to stay with, because of some snooty idea that a quality mind only read quality books. Youth is such a self-righteous, ridiculous time of life! Still I’m glad I read the classics early on, for I doubt I would have the patience or perseverance to slog my way through Austen, now! And now? I read for a dozen different reasons: for information, for the love of the English language…the roll and roar of an ocean of words; for entertainment and lighthearted humor, for edification, still, but more often for a different angle on life and humanity than my own experience affords me.

There are many books I have not yet read that I would like to (or at least would like to try to read) and I am always on the lookout for a good reading list to serve as my guide. I base my choice of list on whether it has a few books that I have already read and loved…it is a cautious approach, and I will not make very big leaps in the word of literature by hopping from pebble to pebble, but in my own slow way I move across the pond, sometimes to its edge, and from there chance to spy something really new and unfamiliar, out in the middle of the field…

Random House has released their list (two lists, actually: the board’s and the reader’s) of the 100 Best Novels in their Modern Library series…not really two hundred, since many of the titles repeat in both lists. I’ve crossed out the ones I’ve read…again, not as many as it may seem at first glance, since many titles are duplicated.