Sunday column preview

Echoing a couple of blog posts from earlier this week, Sunday’s column is about reading for pleasure. (I hope it will be a pleasure to read.)

Reading is one of my hobbies, but I’ve never been very fast about it. I spend too much time lingering over sentences, my mind is easily distracted and besides, it’s hard to find time to focus on a book.

Have you heard of the book “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die”? Here’s the list. Well, in 2007, this inveterate list-keeper read 10 books. At that rate, it would take me 100 years to read all the books I’m supposedly obligated to read. (Last year I read 24 books, a pace that puts me on track to finish in 42 years if I start this weekend.)

Of course, nobody in his or her right mind would really use that list as a parameter, unless you have a yen to read “Aithiopika” by Heliodorus and “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole. Even the titles are boring. Heck, even the authors’ names are boring.

For anyone reading this after reading that column, the link to the Sarah Weinman I-read-462-books-last-year interview that I mention is here. It’s also a few blog posts down in the “Speaking of reading…” entry, preceded by a piece about “Billy Budd.”

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