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Hey newsletter readers! Jealous about the travelling you all have done! A few of your emails about visiting authors’ rooms below. As always, the inbox is bookof...@npr.org. And if you want to hear the latest author interviews from across NPR, subscribe to NPR’s Book of the Day podcast. Here’s this week’s letter! |
Ever since Michael Silverblatt died a few weeks ago, I’ve been crushing archive episodes of his excellent KCRW author-interview show Bookworm. Listening to him tussle with a young Kazuo Ishiguro over what makes great literature versus pretty good literature, or to try to get his arms around Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, it’s clear that Silverblatt was an excellent and astute reader. He was someone who read with an insight we should all aspire to. So in my own reading life I’ve also been keeping in mind this piece in the Los Angeles Times from 1997, where he laid out his rules for reading:
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Sit. If you're lying down you'll fall asleep.
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Read at least 100 pages in your first session with a new book. You must get well in.
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If you're reading for pleasure, finish a book before starting a new one. Don't keep three or four going.
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If your eyes get tired, try cotton compresses with witch hazel – they're soothing and refreshing.
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Read a book about a country you've never visited.
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Ask close friends to name their favorite book, one that changed their life or one that accompanied a change in life. You will learn not just about the book, but about the person who recommended it.
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Don't be embarrassed to keep a vocabulary list. Reading without understanding is not a virtue.
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Don't torture yourself to read out of duty. A great book has an obligation to enrich and alter your life.
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There are certain books you'll find you're not ready for. Please suspend your judgement of them. it took me seven years and six tries to read [William] Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
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If you can’t discard preconceptions that come from bad classroom experiences – for example, A Tale of Two Cities and Silas Marner are not [Charles] Dickens’ or [T.S.]Eliot’s best works – if you’ve X’d them out of your list, you’re missing something of pleasure. You’re ready now. Try them.
Now, I admire how practical some of these tips are. Not a lot of people will cop to reading being physical and sometimes you need help staying upright (I haven’t tried the witch hazel-on-the-eyes trick yet. I’m curious, but scared!).
But I really want to talk about rule number two – that your first time with a book should be 100 pages in one sitting. I tried to do that with the latest book I started (Bad Asians by Lillian Li), but I got a work e-mail, and well, you know how that goes. 100 pages at once seems to be rough to pull off for most people. The last time I did it, it was because I was hosting All Things Considered, and I was set to interview the author the next day. I can’t say it was an ideal reading experience – it was a late night, I felt rushed, and was more thinking about the interview the next day, rather than the book at hand. I was also being paid for my efforts, since it was, you know, my job. So the context is a bit different than reading for pleasure.
And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that Silverblatt was right. At least 100 pages in one go is ideal. That’s what we should all aim for. Maybe one day.
What do you all think – is 100 pages in one sitting actually easy, and I’m a victim of brain rot? Do you vociferously agree/disagree with any of the other rules? Let us know – bookof...@npr.org. |
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Newsletter continues after sponsor message
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| Iran has been in the news lately. In keeping with Michael Silverblatt's fifth rule (read a book from a country you’ve never visited), my colleague Anastasia Tsioulcas put together a list of books, movies and music made by people from Iran and the Iranian diaspora. |
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NEON; Pantheon; Gandom Films Production; NEON; Vintage; Julia Gunther for NPR |
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Last week I wrote about the magic of visiting famous writers’ rooms. Here’s what you had to say.
Reagan R. wrote: “When I was in my early 20s and was fully romanticizing the idea of becoming a writer with a ‘room of [my] own,’ I joined a college group and toured the Brontë home. While walking through the gloomy house on a typical wet day I distinctly remember thinking ‘Oh, goodness. I don’t want this at all.’ Sometime later we toured Beatrix Potter’s home. It was full of color and flowers, it was sunny outside, and I loved it. I thought that meant something about my writing style. A sign from the ancestors. Now I realize that I just prefer flowers and sunshine on a sunny day.”
Barbara L. wrote: “I’m fortunate to live not far from Walt Whitman’s birthplace on Long Island. While I enjoy the lively poetry readings and other programs held there, nothing moves me quite as much as the simple fact of the place. It feels sacred to me, as if the great poet’s tremendous soul still can be felt by just being in or near the modest home where he was born.”
Julie B. wrote: “Speaking of Ernest Hemingway, I visited his home in Cuba a while back. You couldn't go everywhere, but the windows were open and you could get a really good feel of the place. Seeing his bedroom with his typewriter was definitely a thrill, as well as his ‘writing tower,’ his boat and the bars where he hung out. I also visited his home in Key West. For some reason it did not give me the same vibe as his home in Cuba.”
See you next week!
P.S., if a friend sent you this newsletter and you want to sign up, the place to do it is npr.org/newsletter/books. :) |
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