You are not reading enough
Reading anxiety (different to the semiotic anxiety of reading that involves wresting with signs, decoding and privilege) has me in its ice-cold clutches of late. I find that I am breaking out in feelings of inadequacy and time-negligence while I play Words with friends on my iPhone or spend a day experimenting in the kitchen or enjoying a film marathon or, occasionally, drinking at the pub.
I am wracked with guilt every time I indulge in such cavalier activities while there is so much reading material passing me by, online and in print.
I have recently discovered the joys of Google Reader° (a whole other blog post) and now start my mornings with feeds from news sites like the Age, ABC news, SBS news, newmatilda, the Drum, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, the Guardian, and others, purely to keep up-to-date with global affairs.
Then there is Twitter, my go-to source for independent and breaking news – often news that’s not covered in mainstream publications. I also subscribe to Antony Loewenstein’s blog, Larvatus Prodeo, Talking Points Memo, The Atlantic Wire, Mother Jones, The Nation, Truthout – a little US-centric, but these are just the ones I’ve thought to add to my Google Reader over the past fortnight.
For literary laced with commentary, I frequently check in at Arts & Letters Daily, The Rumpus, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Rejectamentalist Manifesto (China Mieville’s blog), City of Tongues (James Bradley’s blog, whose blog roll is extensive and will take time to work my way through), Among Amid While (Margo Lanagan’s blog) and Justine Larbalestier’s blog.
(In 2002, Wired estimated that nine blogs are created every minute. That’s eight years ago, and few pundits seem willing to hazard a guess to the number now.)
On top of this daily reading, there are a number of literary journals and magazines I read online or buy in print like Heat, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Overland, The Baffler (though they don’t update very often), Guernica, New Left Review, Dissent, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Creative nonfiction, The New Yorker and Zoetrope all-story.
Now I pause to think about books. I have so many books within arm’s reach waiting for my attention. Next to my bed is: Going Bovine by Libba Bray, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, Essential Acker – the Selected Writings of Kathy Acker, Rooms of Our Own by Susan Gubar, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, An Elegy for Easterly by Pettina Gappah, Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton and The Virtuoso by Sonia Orchard. Many of these books are not new releases.
This list doesn’t touch upon the longlist for the Miles Franklin, like The Book of Emmett by Deborah Forster or Figurehead by Patrick Allington; it doesn’t include Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall or any other works on the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist. And then there’s the Man Booker. This year we have to work through not only the 2010 longlist when it’s announced, but also the list for the Lost Man Booker, which includes Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat and Patrick White’s The Vivisector, neither of which, I’m sad to say, I’ve ever read.
And then there’s writing about writing. And writing about literature. And there’s research. And theory. I mean where does it stop? I’m currently working on a novel, two short stories and a couple of articles, as well as blog posts and a review. All of these writings require research, leaving scant time for researching a subject you’re interested in outside of your writing.
Feeling panicked? Well, this is just a fraction of what’s on offer. We have moved from a time when they was a limited number of periodicals and books published in Australia each year to a world of multitudinous words within a moment’s grasp.
I am not reading enough. But isn’t it physically impossible to consume all of these writings – and to know that there are so many more out there, growing in number each minute (doing little to allay my reading anxiety)?
So, I am not reading enough. Are you?
This post only accounts for works written in English. You’re really in trouble if you’re bilingual.
°And I should add that Google Reader actually does save a lot of time. I used to have to visit all of these sites every day.
This post makes me feel panicky. I often sit back and look at my bookcases, overflowing with approximately 250 wonderful books I have not read, and then I go and read some Agatha Christie tosh instead. I reassure myself with the comfort that I will never, ever run out of things to read.
Kirsty Logan
07 April at 06:11PM
I always seem to have more books than time, though I secretly like it that way. My google reader list consumes me also, though sometimes I get tired of getting sucked into reading the same article only little bit different across multiple sites. Paraphrasing of blogs on other blogs can really clog things up.
For me the wealth of "on the go" information online has encouraged bad habits in me. I've become a little impatient and info greedy. Sitting down for an hour to read a book conjours up issues of opportunity cost (what else is happening right now, what am I missing out on). I keep expecting the book in my hand to prompt me for a chapter update or related post from the author. I find I read most if I can position myself in an internet dead zone - so I catch the bus instead of drive, that sort of thing. If I can't catch the bus I can go a week without picking up a book.
Mark Welker
08 April at 09:07AM
I really am not reading enough. I was feeling the pressure before I read your post. Now I'm feeling it even more.
Stephanie
08 April at 09:17AM
Hi Jacinda. My reading is a willful distraction from my writing. Things spiraled downwards when I was recruited as a contributor to the Overland blog. I've since morphed from blogskeptic to blogslut. Now not only am I reading every blog post (and cross post), I'm running at the mouth with reflexive opinion.
My problem is that I'm reading too much online (a distinctly different experience from good old hard copy), writing too much of little consequence and assiduously neglecting my calling.
But it's amusing how other people's reading lists can be strangely alluring. Scanning yours was kind of exciting.
Boris Kelly
08 April at 09:56AM
Jacinda, by your own admission, you are reading enough - but are you reading for work or for pleasure?
If the latter, decide what kind of reading you want to do, and jettison the rest (or prune it, radically). There is no 'ought to' or 'should' when you're reading for pleasure.
If you're reading for work (or study), what you're expected to read is probably completely unreasonable and you need to manage it like you would manage any other work task, i.e. prioritise it (important/urgent; important/not urgent; not important (i.e. administrivia)/urgent; not important/not urgent. If the reading is for work, do not add to your own workload!
Google reader is terrific, but can overwhelm you in no time so that you are reading about reading instead of actually reading. If you don't manage it, you find yourself reading a lot of unsatisfying or irrelevant stuff just because it's there because GR doesn't differentiate between the dross and the treasure. It's like cyber friendship, you can have so many friends you can't get to know or nurture any of them properly!
I've got a TBR of about 500 books, which brings me the pleasure of anticipation not anxiety - the books just sit there on the shelf waiting their turn. (They're the only things I enjoy dusting LOL). I've lost count of the blogs and online offerings I subscribe to in GR, but if things get busy -well, I just mark 'em all as 'read' and start again:) It's no more of a disaster than missing an episode of something on TV or skipping the news. If it's important, you'll hear about it from somewhere else, eh? The other strategy I use is to prune my online subscriptions regularly and ruthlessly: if I haven't found anything worth reading for a couple of months, I hit delete.
Guilt and anxiety are totally unproductive, and you've got a novel to write. That is possibly the one thing you'll feel most proud of and be remembered for. Relax, write your book, and enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got.
Lisa
PS Reading some of the shorter books (e.g. The Book of Emmett, The Virtuoso) may make you feel better. Both BTW are also terrific books and have elements an aspiring writer can learn from!
PPS Don't be embarrassed about not having read The Vivisector or anything else from the past. It takes a lifetime (if ever) to be 'well read' and there are 40 years of published books worth reading since White wrote The Vivisector and over a century's great books before that. Who's read them all? Nobody.
PS Did you know you can group things in Google Reader? You could, for example, group all the US stuff separate to the Oz stuff. It helps you prioritise.
Lisa Hill
08 April at 10:01AM
Google Reader is kind of awesome isn't it (although I am a little uneasy with the fact, now that most of what I read on the net is through Reader, there is a permanent record of all my readings).
The approach I take is not be methodical at all, just enjoy it. There is no ethical imperative to read. It's bad for your eyes anyway :)
Joshua Mostafa
08 April at 12:32PM
How sensible Lisa is! Still... I'm not reading enough. Or writing enough. I am probably like Boris, "Running at the mouth with reflexive opinion." which can be stimulating and generative, but can also be just the distraction of busy-work.
I have lost entirely the habit of devouring whole books - a result of these first years of motherhood - and the internet provides a shallow kind of solace and perhaps, some kind of context within which to write again.
But at some point, I will have to step away from that and make more room for the kind of reading which generates reflective ideas, rather than reflexive ones. Reading that has (sometimes strange) pathways to the more expansive spaces of my mind and those blank pages waiting there. Reading that leaves you with stillness enough to pick up the pen. A literal pen. I miss that.
cerebralmum
09 April at 09:42AM
I feel this way about everything in my life, not reading enough is at the top of the list but so is not creating enough as a writer and artist, not living my life enough because so much of my time is spent running around in circles and ultimately wasting time and thus wasting my life. The only solution is to turn off the computer. Do we really need to be keeping up with all the drivel that's being written on the net? It could be argued that this blog post is part of that drivel. It certainly hasn't added anything to our lives other than highlight how addicted we all are to wasting our lives on the web.
Leia
11 April at 02:20PM
Jacinda, I don't know whether to thank you for alerting me to all this stuff I should be reading or to have a panic attack - I can't find time for the avalanche of books by my bedside as it is. I'll have to sign off now 'cos I want to check out Among Amid While. I hear sleep is good, too!
Trish
14 April at 07:56PM
Jacinda, eat, sleep, love, go to the pub if you like. Get near a tree - quickly. You read enough.
Great list of resources, thanks.
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