"Stuck in a Reading Rut"

Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“Stuck in a Reading Rut?”

March 3, 2018

“The more that you read, the more places you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you will go.”

                                                                        Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel, 1904-1991)

                                                                        “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!”

As in most things, we tend to stick to what’s familiar in books we read. If one likes mysteries, and one just finished a juicy murder by Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey or Patricia Cornwall one will turn to Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times to find out what she’s recommending, or Otto Penzler, of the Mysterious Book Shop in Manhattan.

But does it not make sense to try something different? Recently, Erin Geiger Smith of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article with the title I borrowed for this piece. Her column made me think of a change I had made. I have long alternated between fiction and non-fiction. I read non-fiction to learn – history, people, events – books like Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, David Brooks’ On Paradise Drive, Jennet Conant’s Tuxedo Park and Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money.  Fiction, in contrast, I used to read only for pleasure – like watching a light movie after a docudrama. I read anything by Wodehouse and everything by my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams. I read Robert Barnard, John Marquand, and Old Lyme’s David Handler. Generally, I read about thirty books a year – not much when one considers that more than 100,000 books get published every year, but enough to keep me occupied.

But a few years ago, I decided I should read (or re-read) some of the classics – Dickens, Austen, the Bronté sisters, George Eliot even Tolkien. Reading these authors is not only entertaining, but instructional. While language, venues and manners change, human nature does not. This exerciset led me to Anthony Trollope. My parents had had a set of Trollope, but I never read him. He seemed intimidating. However, in 2011 I picked up Barchester Towers. I enjoyed it but found the characters difficult to track. For five years Mr. Trollope lay fallow. Finally, in 2016, I read The Warden, the first of the six Barsetshire novels. I was hooked. That same year I read Doctor Thorne. The characters became old friends. Last year I read Framley Parsonage and The Small House at Allington. I am now reading The last Chronicle of Barset, the final of the six books in the series, and am looking forward to starting the Parliamentary (or Palliser) series.

There are thousands of writers, and it is fun to try someone different, especially authors we read when in school or college – classics that have stood the test of time. I still like to read those I know. With the wind blowing and the rain coming down, old favorites like Charles McCarry and Lee Childs are as comfortable as a hot cup of cocoa. But we cannot spend our lives in a cocoon. No matter our age, we should challenge ourselves, and there is little that is more rewarding than re-reading a book we read sixty or seventy years ago. Now, with time to savor the story (and no one looking over our shoulder), we have the advantage of reading with a perspective unavailable to those in their teens.

Oh, and this essay should be shown to children and grandchildren who feel STEM programs alone lead to success. Remember, classics open the mind in a way an algebra text does not.