I’ve been reading a lot lately. At least one book a week. Most of the books I’m reading are based off of a never-ending list; books that someone recommended to me at some point, uponwhich I jotted them down, hoping that I could work through them someday. Then again, other books are spontaneous finds, flushed into my system by algorithms and all the other myriad forces of the universe.
For a while, I was worried that I was keeping this list just for the sake of keeping a list—as a sort of vanity metric to prize myself as an intellectual on the one hand, and give myself a reason to order more books on the other (which are ultimately two sides of the same coin, are they not?). But now, it’s actually happening. I’m working through the list. I’m making progress. And yes, there’s a special sense of fulfilment in reading the very books I’ve wanted to read for quite some time now. Kind of like crossing off a pesky task that you’ve been postponing for months from your to-do list.
Anyway, in this context, it seemed sensible to me to start a kind of reading journal (reading diary?). There are two reasons for this. The first is that I want to capture the unique impressions that creep up on me while reading, and especially after reading a specific book. What would I give to know once again the feelings and thoughts I had when turning the final page of what I now deem as my favorite books: The Remains of the Day, The Road, Siddhartha, to name just a few. Which lines, which sentences, which readings between the lines moved me? Which of them influenced me to make different choices, change my life in retrospect? Wouldn’t it be worth capturing those very lines, just as I capture photos from a distant vacation, or from a dinner with friends, so I can recall that feeling again, so I can relate who I am now with the person I once was?
The second reason I see for keeping a reading journal is that it’ll give me a reason to pause. Rather than diving straight into the next book or jumping on Goodreads or YouTube to see other people’s opinions, a reading journal allows me to let the book sink in, reflect on it, find out what I think about it.
The way I see it is this: Each book is a whole new world. Good books transfer their world onto mine. Which means that I get to see my worn-out world through the eyes of another person’s world. I don’t want to miss the opportunity of glimpsing into new worlds, is what I’m trying to say. If I spend ten hours reading a book, I can surely spend another hour to think deepy about what I’ve just read.
Herein lies a danger for me as well. Namely that my well-intentioned endeavors to reflect can quickly turn into a relentless drive for optimization, for perfection. When I started The Bibliosopher’s Club a few years ago, a sort of book club, I ran into this problem. With every book I wanted to bibliosophize, I felt compelled to squeeze every last bit out of it, to analyze every page, to write a separate chapter about each chapter. I learned a lot. It was exhausting.
Don’t get me wrong. I still consider this idea—engaging as deeply as humanly possible with a book’s ideas—to be noble. After all, even if the book itself doesn’t offer much insight, the very act of immersing oneself in a subject causes the material to crawl under your skin so that it can very palpably change your life. But right now, I find that approach unrealistic. While reading a book, I don’t want to be thinking about needing to reflect or write about it. No, I just want to read. Let it sink in. And then, after I turn the last pages and stare at the back of the cover, only then, if at all, do I want to start dissecting what I’ve read, for as long or short as I please.
I’ve been reading a lot lately. Even so, the time will come when I won’t open a book for weeks on end—because life gets too busy, or because I’m sick of seeing letters everywhere, or whatever. The list will grow like rampant weeds without getting trimmed down. And I’ll lose the desire not just to read but also to write, because language and ideas can only come out where they go in. In those days, I hope I’ll be at least able to muster the energy to return to my reading journal and remind myself of the impact, the resonance, the power of good literature.