Why is reading so hard? It should be fun, right? Maybe in industrial quantities it just becomes a little too much like work.
Since my last post about everything I planned to read in 2013, I’ve done plenty of reading. I’ve been reading about how to read, I’ve been reading articles about books I would one day like to get around to reading, I’ve been updating my Goodreads list, and – to be fair – I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading, mostly for fun. But in terms of actually sitting down during the workday and ploughing through some of the fiction and nonfiction I should be reading… nothing. As a friend of mine put it this morning, I’ve been working more on my “to-read” list than my actual “read” list.
On the plus-side, I’ve been reading two of possibly my favourite books ever, one in translation (A Thousand Morons), and another collection of short stories in French that I would love to translate myself.
So it hasn’t been a total failure. It’s just that after a few weeks of trying to read more, I’ve noticed that it’s hard to work it into my daily routine. Sending off an invoice or translating a rush job or working on another long-term project always seems to get in the way. And as for reading in the evenings? My wife doesn’t seem to think that curling up in the corner with a good book passes for overtime. Not with clothes to be washed and dishes to be done.
