\nAnd he pointed out something interesting. While people have no shame about saying they’re hopeless at maths (in fact, like me they will laugh merrily), reading is different. Nothing to joke about. Or rather, people might joke about the fact that they never read books (strangely, I met a few of those – quite loud and proud about it, too –\u00a0 while working in a bookshop) they are less likely to broadcast the fact if they can’t<\/em> read. Illiteracy carries a real stigma. Problems with self-esteem and confidence proliferate along with the practical difficulties.
\nMy friend, like me, loves to read. It’s an unusual week when I only get through one book; more often it is two or even three. On holidays, it can be a book a day. But he is more likely to read a book a month. It’s because, he told me, he’s a slow reader. Not only because he likes to make sure he fully understands what he reads, but because he reads every word. He’s always been a bit shocked about the way I skip and skim. Once he asked me what my reaction would be if a person read one of my books in that way (I wouldn’t care, was the answer). The fact is, he finds reading a rewarding but not easy activity.
\nI asked if he’d had trouble learning to read.\u00a0 Not at all, was the answer. He\u00a0 just never got fast. On the other hand, initially I had a lot of trouble. Failed at John and Betty<\/em>, remedial reading, kept back in preps. Yet once I got the hang of it, I became a voracious breakneck-speed bookworm, and still am. A puzzle.<\/p>\n
I gave it a crack. I made myself read each and every word. Each and, the, if, so, he, she, it.<\/em>.. Reading like this would permanently destroy my pleasure in fiction, that’s for sure. It made me realise that my usual reading experience is sometimes too fast\u00a0 – so that I don’t always take in all of what I’ve read. Not that it matters; there’s an addictive quality to\u00a0 breakneck reading and I love being pulled along at speed by a real page-turner. I finished Richard Osman’s The Man Who Died Twice<\/em> in a day! More often, though, it’s a mix of darting ahead and hovering, often skimming a paragraph or a sentence, sometimes going back. If the writing is beautiful – as it is, for instance, in Michael Ondatje’s Warlight<\/em> or Emily St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility<\/em> – I have to force myself to slow down and pay attention. Or (better) read the book again.<\/p>\n It is not often that I reflect on the act of reading. After fifty six years of practice and with many hundreds (thousands?) of books and articles read, it seems…well, natural<\/em>. My conversation and the not-really-read Proust and the Squid<\/em> show that that’s not the case at all.<\/p>\n And here is the list:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had planned – one of those New Year’s resolutions – that this year I would do a monthly roundup of everything I’d been reading. Obviously, I haven’t. I haven’t even done the bare minimum once-a-week book review that I … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ImageHandler.jpg\")
<\/a>One of the books that I skip-read and didn’t include in my list was Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain<\/em> by Maryanne Wolf. She’s a cognitive neuroscientist and scholar of reading. A library book I chose for the title (Proust! Plus Squid! plus, the words ‘brain’ and ‘science’, which are catnip to me). It was fascinating but hard work and so, running out of puff, I skimmed and then gave up. However skimming gave me a few lasting insights which I was able to bring to the conversation with my friend. The major one is that reading is not easy. Understanding written symbols is a huge and complex task. Our brains were not set up for this particular activity at all; it’s way, way beyond the range of our original abilities. We taught our brains to read only a few thousand years ago – not a long time in the span of human evolution and literacy has changed the way our brains are configured. They are still evolving. (As to where digital culture is taking our brains – that’s another question…) Wolf’s discussion of dyslexia led me to another insight. The bare bones of reading is decoding. The other part is fluency. So you can be a competent or even excellent decoder, yet still read slowly – word by word – like my friend.<\/p>\n
\nMillions Like Us <\/em>Virginia Nicholson
\nThe Thursday Murder Club <\/em>Richard Osman
\nReal Estate <\/em>Deborah Levy
\nMothers, Fathers and Others <\/em>Siri Hustvedt
\nTrue Stories <\/em>Helen Garner<\/p>\n
\nOnce Upon a River\u00a0 <\/em>Diane Setterfield
\nBurning Questions\u00a0 <\/em>Margaret Atwood
\nOrwell’s Roses<\/em> Rebecca Solnit
\nLinnets and Valerians <\/em>Elizabeth Goudge
\nJournal of a Solitude,\u00a0 <\/em>Plant Dreaming Deep,\u00a0 <\/em>House By The Sea\u00a0 <\/em>May Sarton<\/p>\n
\nWriting a Woman’s Life<\/em> Carolyn Heilbrun
\nMay Sarton<\/em> Margot Peters
\nStranger Care<\/em> Sarah Sentilles
\nWith the End in Mind<\/em> Kathryn Mannix
\nAt Seventy<\/em> May Sarton
\nMoondial<\/em> Helen Cresswell<\/p>\n
\nWarlight<\/em> Michael Ondatje
\n40,000 Weeks<\/em> Oliver Burkeman
\nI Didn’t Do the Thing Today<\/em> Madeleine Dore
\nNovelista<\/em> Claire Askew
\nWriting with Quiet Hands<\/em> Paula Munier
\nThe Friend<\/em> Sigrid Nunez
\nThe Writer Laid Bare<\/em> Lee Kofman
\nThe Violet Hour<\/em> Katie Roiphe
\nSempre Susan<\/em> Sigrid Nunez
\nPiranesi<\/em> Susannah Clarke
\nWhat Are You Going Through<\/em> Sigrid Nunez
\nBreath<\/em> James Nestor<\/p>\n
\nSecond Place<\/em> Rachel Cusk
\nCanticle Creek<\/em> Adrian Hyland
\nLove Stories<\/em> Trent Dalton
\nNew and Selected Poems<\/em> Vol 2 Mary Oliver
\nTelltale<\/em> Carmel Bird
\nBedtime Story<\/em> Chloe Hooper
\nThe Way It Is Now<\/em> Gary Disher
\nGive Unto Others<\/em> Donna Leon
\nA Gentleman in Moscow<\/em> Amor Towle
\nThe Other Side of the Bridge<\/em> Mary Lawson
\nEmpire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family<\/em> Patrick Radden Keefe<\/p>\n
\nThe Golden Egg, Falling in Love, The Waters of Eternal Youth, The Temptation of Forgiveness<\/em> Donna Leon
\nBlack Cock’s Feather<\/em> Maurice Walsh
\nA Woman Named Smith<\/em> Marie Conway Oemler
\nSea of Tranquility<\/em> Emily St John Mandel
\nThe Man Who Died<\/em> Twice Richard Osman<\/p>\n