As holiday intensity peaks, I crave getting away from “getting and spending.”
A favorite refuge of mine is curling up with a good book—and I know I’m not alone. Perhaps you too fight to make time to simply sit and read amidst the holiday hustle and bustle.
I recently talked with my mother-in-law Trisha Day about her reading habits this time of year. She’s perhaps the most well-read person I know, and I always learn so much from her approach to reading.
So I asked her to share a little with me—and us—about both what she’s reading, and how she goes about reading in the midst of the holiday busyness:
Here’s Trisha Day on her reading list, and finding just five or ten minutes for slow reading:
I am not a one-book-at-a-time reader probably because once I start a book, I keep finding others I want to read as well. So, it’s not unusual for me to have four or five books going at the same time. Life, after all, takes me off in all kinds of different directions and I have become adept at skipping along from one thing to the other with as much energy as I can muster.
It means trying to be fully present to whatever it is I’m doing at the moment instead of pretending there is such a thing as multi-tasking. (There’s not. “Multi-tasking” just means switching back and forth between different things you’re trying to do without giving your full attention to any of them.)
Reading several books “at the same time” simply means giving my full attention to whichever one I’ve picked up at the moment. And that’s easier to do when I slow down because as Georgia O’Keefe once said, “it’s impossible to pay attention in a hurry.”
Slowing down to pay attention to what I’m reading is a little like what happens on a walk when I take the time to stop and look around at what’s worth noticing instead of hurrying right past it.
Five or ten minutes of slow reading can be much more satisfying than half an hour spent rushing through the pages of a book I feel I need to read for a book club discussion.
This month my slow reading is taking me back and forth through the following books:
My Antonia by Willa Cather – set in the late 19th century as homesteaders were struggling with the hardships of prairie life just like my own immigrant ancestors did, this is a book I’ve read many years ago and am enjoying all over again.
Gone Fishin’ by Walter Mosely – about as far removed from Willa Cather as is possible, this prequel to Mosely’s detective series introduces us to the gritty, often rather raunchy but always likable Easy Rawlins.
Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization by Martin Dugard – based on the lives of some of the major figures involved in protecting London from the threat imposed by Nazi Germany, this makes me wish I would have paid more attention to my history classes.
Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser former Poet Laureate and one of my favorite poets – this slim volume is a collection of short poems he wrote each day beginning in late November and copied onto postcards to send to his friend and fellow poet Jim Harrison. I’ve been reading one of them each morning.
That’s what I’m reading as of now. But given how much I enjoy finding new books to read, I suppose I’ll be adding to that list before the month is over.
You too deserve to give yourself space and time—even just five minutes—for slow reading. I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading lately, whether you have five minutes or five hours.