Something I realized recently: a lifetime is not long enough for me to read all the books in the world.
The TBR pile is an interesting phenomenon in today’s climate; with the rise of e-books and free or massively discounted novels, I’ve seen people say their stack has risen upwards to thousands. Thousands of books, unread. How many years is it going to take to go through it all? How many have been added in the meantime?
I’ve amassed quite a pile myself in the last couple of years, which has led me to re-examine my reading habits. Am I just reading something shiny, because everyone else is reading it, or it looked pretty? Do I even remember why I picked up the books? A lot of the times it’s because everyone was talking about it and it was on sale so why the heck not? Curiosity. A few times I’ve tried to pick up books everyone was talking excitedly about, and forced myself through it all only to hate it in the end. As if I didn’t know my reading habits and what I enjoyed.
Why do I read? This isn’t just about chomping down a bag of chips one after another, is it? Books aren’t junk food.
I recently picked up one of the books on my physical pile, The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolf. Normally labelled a “challenging read,” but half an hour and three chapters later and I can safely say I am going to be savouring every moment of it. Books like these remind me to slow down, that life is not a race.
Life is finite.
I want to pick up books from writers I’ve fallen in love with, so I can read more of them and gain more understanding of their processes and insight. I’ve only read five of Dostoevsky’s novels; I need to read the others. Le Guin died this year–I’ve only read a handful of hers. Only all of Earthsea, and The Left Hand of Darkness, and the first two books in Annals of the Western Shore…and nothing else. I’ve recently discovered Tanith Lee and want to wade into her massive backlist. I want to read this stories, re-read them, tear them apart, and then re-read them again. This is what I love about books, after all; the hidden beats, the stories between the lines. Why did she use that word and not that other? Why did these scenes happen?
Climbing a mountain CAN be about conquering the peak, but it’s not the only way to do it. Sometimes you can stop halfway, find yourself some alpine meadows overlooking a glacier, set your tent down, and enjoy the fuck out of everything. Sit there. Contemplate.
So for now, I’m going to read what matters, numbers be damned. That TBR needs to make a better case before it can grow any bigger.
