Reading

I have this habit--maybe you do, too--of starting a book, getting about a third of the way into it, and putting it down for a day.

And picking up another book, and getting about a third of the way into it, or halfway through, and putting it down.

And so on, and so on, until I have four or five books scattered around the house waiting to be picked up again.

Usually they span a range of genres, to fit every reading mood. So right now, I'm making the most headway in David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet for book club, because we meet every week and read a book every two weeks, so most of the time I feel like I should be reading that.* (The pace alone is pretty exhausting.) But half the time I'd rather be rereading the Betsy-Tacy series, or finishing the memoir a friend lent me, or planning future vacations like Alice Steinbach's.

I like to think it's the product of an excitable brain. There are so many things to think about and read about, like Welsh rarebit parties and tracking Jane Austen and surviving graduate school while expecting a baby with Down's syndrome and the Dutch trading agreement with Japan...but really, maybe it's a sign that I can't commit.

For whatever reason, though, it works. Dipping into one book here, another book there is almost like sitting down with a new friend every afternoon. It's such a comfort.


*Book guilt is a whole different story. Do you ever feel guilty about prioritizing one book over another? Even when they're both just for fun? It plagues me...