What are you reading?
A friend asked me that question recently, and I almost found
myself stumped.
Reading isn't skimming. It's not staring at a screen,
spasmodically flipping back and forth between the New York Times, Washington
Post, Politico, Barron's, electoral-vote.com, Foreign Policy, NRO and anything
else to which Twitter would lead. It's certainly not dipping myself into the
digital inkwell of the Comments section, finding something to be outraged
about, and letting it fly. That's not even writing, much less reading for
content.
So, what was I reading? Books. I need books, something to
stimulate my brain instead of my adrenals. I could, as I have done countless
times, head to Strand and wander up and down the aisles looking for things that
might pique my interest. There's always something at Strand. Fiction,
non-fiction, history, science, art, architecture and music, tomes on various
topics. I am a serious tome fan, and Strand is the place where you can amuse
yourself just by scanning the blurbs. "Professor Throckmanshire has
produced the definitive work on mid-18th Century Cornish snuffboxes." If
that doesn't appeal….
Yet, I have enough books. I know, you can never have enough, but I
live in a Manhattan apartment, and, short of tethering rucksacks of them to the
outside of the windows (a practice frowned upon by both the City and the co-op
board) there isn't a lot of space. The bedrooms are filled with them, the
living room stuffed. They are piled up on surfaces and double-deep in
built-ins. Of course, a few more wouldn't hurt, but a few more are always
arriving—gifts from family and friends, odds and ends on which I couldn't
resist spending the kids' tuition money. And the dirty secret was I hadn't read
them all yet. I'd been too busy feeding my political obsessions. I didn't need
to go to Strand—there was plenty to harvest here at home. Clearly, it wasn't
the quantity of books; I was falling down on the reading of them.
There was my problem, and my solution. So, I made my way through
the vast expanse of my palatial residence looking for ideas—different ones than
those that had distracted me for the last year. I started in my daughter's
room. Plenty of options, not all entirely interesting to a man of my years.
Some were clearly a no. Books on classical music…possible, but perhaps a little
esoteric. The contents of my son's room just didn't inspire. Our bedroom…eh,
and there was the omnipresent risk of raising dust if I probed too deeply. The
living room held the treasures, if I could just get through the piles and
obstructions, the vintage speakers, and, occasionally, the plants.
There's a strange feeling when you do this, going from volume to
volume, topic to topic. It's almost like reliving past relationships. This
love-interest lasted about three months. This one, somewhat longer, but didn't
she dump you because you never understood her, or was it that she didn't
understand you? Here's a passion that never quite left, and these few…what
exactly was I thinking when I made the time and the space?
Books are tactile as well—they have a heft to them, a certain
solidity in the hand that promises inspiration, knowledge, or just
entertainment. A book is a book, not just a collection of electrons. You don't
click your way around a library; you have to be purposeful. I stretched and
peered and craned, as if in an archeological dig, getting down on hands and
knees, pulling out the double-stacked ones to expose those behind, looking for
something to grab me. I was tempted by two recent gifts, the first on World War
II's Operation Mincemeat, and a second, Founding Rivals. Almost
there, but was I ready to dive back into non-fiction quite this early? Finally,
I rounded a bend and removed some science fiction and a book on chess to
unearth the treasures behind. I found myself at #221B Baker Street.
Old love, but definitely loved. Two volumes, the dust covers long
gone, the bindings cracked and worn, pages yellowed, even uncharacteristic
markings on some of the paragraphs in my uniquely indecipherable handwriting. I
don't think I had touched them in 15 years or so, when I was reading them out
loud (in my best Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce voices) to my son. These would
do. A few adventures with Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his amanuensis, Dr. John H.
Watson, late of Afghanistan.
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