Elspeth Wilson on Becoming a Literary Omnivore
As someone who has spent much of the last half-decade trying to “make it” as an author—an increasingly slippery ideal, I fear—it feels bizarre to admit that for much of my adult life I didn’t read fiction at all. Sacrilegious, even. Like so many other writers, I’d loved books as a weird, shy child, finding them refuge, friend and escape all wrapped into one. But as someone who’s a very slow reader, I just couldn’t keep up with the volume of reading that was demanded of me as I progressed through school and then university.
If we had to do assigned reading at home for English, it would take me ages and sometimes I’d have to cram pages in breaks before class. By the time I was studying for my undergrad, reading felt like a chore I couldn’t keep on top of. I stayed up late to finish articles and usually only managed a couple of chapters of books that were assigned in their entirety. When I had any free time, the last thing I wanted to do was struggle over more reading.
Then, in a quintessential story of reconnecting to reading, I moved to a new city at twenty-four. I was lonely and often very sad. I was in a long-distance relationship, I hated my job, I had an undiagnosed disability that sometimes caused me such agonising pain I couldn’t leave the house. It turns out circumstances such as these will push you back to considering novels as your friends. To reading in bed when you can’t do anything else. To imagining yourself in different worlds.
I used to feel stressed about reading all the hot, trendy books, getting caught up in the emphasis publishing puts on newness, but now I’m much more likely to read an older book than one steeped in hype and discourse.
At first this rediscovering of reading was delicious. I read on my way to work, distracting myself from the dread of going into the office. When it felt impossible to see friends or go out in bleak London weather, I had a cozy activity to do at home. I found my own taste, reading a lot of heartbroken free verse poetry by young women, plenty of queer romcoms and what the industry might describe as “contemporary women’s fiction” like Big Little Lies.
Read the full article: https://lithub.com/the-unexpected-benefits-of-reading-at-random/
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