Can an hour be better spent than in a bookshop? I’m the person I wish I could be, while browsing everything I could know.
My favourite work of fiction of all time is The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s >1000 pages long. The most common response to this information is “That’s too long, I could never read that”. I don’t follow the logic of a sentiment like that. The book is so good, I wish it were longer.
This is demonstrative of my approach to literature. It opens worlds that can only be experienced on the page. I look for books that I can fall into, escape & wonder.
I’m not a fast reader, and I believe that fiction should be read slowly. What’s the rush? If I could have a time-machine, I’d use it to go back and experience reading great books again for the first time. Suspense and anticipation, all-consuming delight. I regret any time I’ve rushed that experience.
I am looking for books with enough to them that I can & will re-read them, where a second or nth pass will expand rather than diminish the pleasure.
Depth over breadth. Quality over quantity. Get more out.
Fiction is wonder & escape, but it also contains the most important of lessons: empathy. Fiction is a door behind the eyes of others. We can witness their experience, understand how their backgrounds influence them, and relate to the people of the world in a completely different way. Non-fiction can describe and explain other people’s lives, but only art can make you feel it.
I’m slightly suspicious of those that don’t read fiction. I suspect those people are undervaluing empathy. Empathy is not a soft skill. Every act of your rational brain passes through the lens of your world view and background.
Empathy is to our beliefs & opinions what foundations are to sky-scrapers, and what the iris is to sight. Everything is built upon it.
As for what literature I read, I try to find stories that show me something I’ve never taken the time to look at before. However I mostly struggle with many modern writing styles, which can be effectedly colloquial to an inellegant & cringeworthy degree, with type-cast one-dimensional characters introduced with clumsy exposition rather than the gradual discovery.
Consequently, many, though not all, of my favourite books were written pre-1950.
I keep a careful record of what I read, both fiction and non-fiction.
Each year I have some intentions for what I want to get out of the next 12 months’ reading.
For the past couple of years I’ve been publishing my abridged thoughts on reading that year.