I'd Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel

Author:Anne Bogel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Books & Reading;LIT007000;SEL031000
ISBN: 9781493415311
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Choosing my next book sometimes feels like a complicated dance. With so many books to read, how can I possibly decide what to read? What to read now? What to read next? There are many factors to juggle, but I’ll tell you this: I agree with Duke Ellington, the jazz great who famously quipped, “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.”

A deadline—apologies to my library patron friend—isn’t an obstacle to my reading life. (My fines might tell a different story, but never mind those.) In the face of overwhelming options, a deadline clarifies what I want to read right now. It focuses my attention on what I want to happen next. Just like a journalist who lives and dies by their deadline, a reading deadline ensures my books get read sooner, not later.

I often tell myself I’ll get around to reading a certain book one day. But good intentions are worth only so much, and sometimes one day never comes. A good deadline forces me to ask myself if I’m ready to read it right now. (If I’m not, does it even belong on my To Be Read list?)

As deadlines go, library due dates aren’t particularly frightening, but they still impose a clarifying framework on my stack of books to be read—especially if the book in question is an in-demand title I’ve waited months for. The library will deliver those requested titles to me, free of charge, but not without a price. Once they arrive, no matter when they come in, I have only three weeks to read them. If I’ve been waiting months for a popular book, I need to read it immediately or lose my chance. Long-awaited library books often become “urgent” items on my reading list, jumping ahead of books free of time constraints.

Sometimes a social obligation keeps my reading on schedule. Book club is obvious—how many readers spend an entire month not reading, only to read two hundred pages in the twenty-four hours before book club? But coffee with a friend may be enough to get me to read a certain book, and fast. When I have a coffee date on my calendar, I want to show up having read the book a friend raved about the last time we saw each other, because I know she’s going to ask me about it. Sometimes I feel a pleasant kind of obligation to finish a certain title as quickly as possible because a friend is itching to borrow my copy, especially if it’s a new release. I believe in sharing the book love, and so I read—quickly.

Even on vacation, a good deadline spurs me to read more: if I don’t finish at least half of the physical books I brought on vacation, I’ll feel like a failure (and my husband will tease me mercilessly).

Lately, my kids inspire me to read more, and fast. When my child is reading a book and wants to talk about it right now . . . well, I want to talk about books with my kids, so I need to read it.

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