June 2, 2006
Friday 

In 2002, Sara Nelson, a magazine editor and veteran book reviewer, decided to keep a journal of the books she would be reading that year. As the front flap of the book she eventually fashioned out of this experience says, “She had a system all set up: fifty-two weeks, fifty-two books . . . and it all fell apart the first week.” She made lists of the books she planned to read, but found that she was drawn to other titles by serendipity.

I don’t remember now if Nelson achieved her goal of a book a week for a year. I read only part of this book last winter, in a copy borrowed from my public library, when I was trying to follow through on my resolution to read more and to make more of that reading fiction. I also read parts of some other titles about reading, including Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s Ruined by Reading: My Life in Books and A Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel, who endeavored to re-read favorite titles and comment on how they connected with his life. (And I am aware of the irony in that. I spend $600 in one year on books and resolve to read them rather than store them, and resolve to read mostly fiction as well. But before I’ve even chosen a book I already have, I turn instead to library books — at least I didn’t buy them, yet — and nonfiction titles to boot!)

Steven Leveen, the founder of Levenger’s, a company that sells “tools for readers,” says in his The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life that an active reader can probably read only a book a week, thus 50 books a year (he gives you two weeks off), 500 books in a decade. That’s a thought that brings me up short, when I realize that I could make a list of nearly 500 books that are already standing unread on my shelves, and that wouldn’t even begin to address the material I would become interested in along the way.

When I returned from Bread Loaf last August I resolved to read more overall and to increase the percentage of my reading that was fiction. How did I do? Well, let’s look at the available evidence.

Generally, when I’m reading something, I copy out thought-provoking passages in my paper journal. If my notes from September onward are any indication, I read:

• The Wasp Eater, a short novel by William Lychack, who was the assistant leader of the critique group I was in at Bread Loaf
• Tender Hooks, poems by Beth Ann Fennelly, a dazzling young woman (in her person and in her work) whom I met at Bread Loaf in 2003
• The White, a historical novel by Deborah Larsen, who did not publish any fiction until she was past sixty
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a novel by Kim Edwards, whose short story “The Voyeur” so captivated me I used it as a model for a short story of my own
• Crackpots, a novel by Sara Pritchard, another 2003 Bread Loafer
• “Silence,” a short story by Alice Munro in Best American Short Stories 2005
• Prep, a novel by Curtis Sittenfeld that I was sure I would love but which I have decided not to finish
• I’m Not the New Me, a short book of nonfiction pieces about weight loss by Wendy McClure, whose online work I’ve followed for a long time
• P.S., a novel by Helen Shulman, one of the faculty announced for Bread Loaf 2006
• “The Fat Girl,” a short story by Andre Dubus (in a collection I own and sought out from a reference in Wendy McClure’s work)
• “Spaghetti,” a personal essay in We Are What We Eat, a book of pieces about food that was produced to raise money for a hunger-abatement organization
• “Victory Mills,” a short story by Mona Simpson, in Louder than Words, another anthology of food-related writing intended as a hunger-abatement fundraiser
• Something from the Oven, a nonfiction work by Laura Shapiro about the food of the 1950s
• That Night, a novel by Alice McDermott that I had on my shelf for a long time and finally read in preparation for an appearance by the author at a local library
• The Book of Hard Things, a novel by Sue Halpern, a frequent guest and reader at Bread Loaf
• “At Night,” a short story by Andre Dubus that was recommended as a model in a wiriting exercise I used
• “Sole Custody,” a short story by Lynna Williams, instructor in the Emory University course I attended in May
• “A Morning in the Late Crustaceous Period,” another Lynna Williams story
• Winter Birds, a novel by Jim Grimsley, the other instructor at Emory

Total: 17 items from August to May (about 36 weeks), not all of it full-length books and not all of it finished, 75% of it fiction. (I keep track only of book-length material in fiction and nonfiction, short stories, and narrative nonfiction essays. I don’t count articles in news magazines, book reviews, nor what constitutes professional reading for me, writing periodicals and instructional works.)

Evidently, then, I have achieved the goal of reading more fiction, and I doubled the amount I was reading compared to the year before, with three months of this reading year left to go.

I’ve named this summer the Halcyon Days, days of peace and tranquility in which I hope to follow my bliss and engage only in activities that give me joy. It’s time to draw up a focused reading list, allowing, as Sara Nelson did, for serendipity.

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