Chip on Your Shoulder

I've fallen in love. Or maybe I should say I've fallen back in love. It's an R-rated affair.
 
I won't prolong the suspense. I'm talking about reading.
 
In the last month, I've begun devouring books. And I've never felt happier.
 
It takes me back to my childhood when I read everything I could get my hands on, including labels on medicine bottles in the bathroom.
 

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These were the days when I would stay up late — "sneak reading" our three daughters call it these days, as in:

"Boy, you sure are cranky today. What time did you go to sleep?"
 
"2:30."
 
"In the morning?"
 
A sheepish nod. 
 
"What were you doing?"
 
"Sneak reading."

But something happened as I got older. Reading, especially doing it for pure enjoyment, the thrill of disappearing into a book, seemed almost too pleasurable, especially when there were so many other things to do — for work, around the house, with my wife and children. Too time-consuming. Somehow irresponsible. 

Even so, I still found time to watch television, at night especially when, I told myself, I was too tired to read, to even move a muscle, except for the one in my clicker finger as I cable surfed for escape.
I racked up hours of "Simpsons," "Seinfeld," "Frasier." And, during the Iraq war, spent what seemed like centuries devouring embeds' reports and breaking news alerts on top of regular helpings from the Internet, that virtual firehose of news and information that I regularly drink from.
 
Maybe it was the end of the war that changed things for me. Peace, or what passed for it, didn't cause the same hunger for news.

Whatever the reasons, about a month ago, I realized that I missed reading, the way you miss an old friend.

So I got back in touch. In the last few weeks, I've read a lot of fiction ("Big Rock Candy Mountain" by Wallace Stegner, "Crabwalk" by Gunter Grass, "Samaritan" and "Freedomland" by Richard Price, "Good Faith" by Jane Smiley, "A Memory of War" by Frederick Busch and some nonfiction, including Chris Hedges' "War is a Force that Gives us Meaning." 

"If you want to be a writer," Marge Piercy and Ira Wood declare, "be a reader."I've read a handful of wonderful books about the writing craft, full of inspiration and instruction, including "Novel Voices" edited by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais and Stephen Koch's "The Modern Library Writer's Workshop," "So You Want to Write" by Marge Piercy and Ira Wood, and "A Writer's Time" by Kenneth Atchity.
 
Stacked by my bed are piles of new friends (fiction and nonfiction) I'm looking forward to getting to know: "Sons of Mississippi" by Paul Hendrickson, "The Cold Road" by Rick Wilber, and Jane Smiley's "Moo."
 
"How much reading do you do?" a friend asks. "How do you get it done -- when and where? What do you read and how does it help your writing?"
 
It begins, I realize, with desire. Now that I've reconnected with that childhood habit, I can't believe how long I've been away. Or how delicious the feeling of lying in bed (my favorite position) with a few hours in front of me to lose myself in another writer's pages.
 
Sometimes, I steal moments. Or make better use of time. When I was a young Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, I soon learned that books were the ideal companion in a place where time was more elastic, and a book was the best way to endure hours of waiting — for a bus, a taxi, the end of a rainstorm. On errands now I try to be never without a book; I no longer mind when a daughter's ballet lesson goes on longer than scheduled. 
 
Reading is not only my refuge but my classroom. When I wake, I try to ignore the clicker in favor of the book that I fell asleep reading. (Started "Moo" last night that way.) I read on planes (a good book can even help you forget you're in a middle seat) and hotel rooms. Late at night. I take reading holidays; last Saturday, I raced through two books. I read for free in bookstores, justifying the purchase of that mocha frappuccino. Reading can be a pricey jones, so I've rediscovered the power of the library card and delight in finding used copies on the Internet.
 
Perhaps it was the realization that for anyone hoping to write reading is an essential act, like breathing or eating.

Looking at the pile of books by my bed, I realize that the clincher that got me back into reading was  a sentiment I came across in Koch's "Writer's Workshop," attributed to Stephen King: "If I had a nickel for every person who told me he/she wanted to become a writer but 'didn't have time to read,' I could buy myself a pretty good steak dinner. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Reading is the creative center of a writer's life."

I've met people like that, young journalists who don't read the paper, aspiring writers who can't tell me the books they're reading. "Now let me get this straight," I think, "you want to write for a medium that you don't read."

"If you want to be a writer," Marge Piercy and Ira Wood declare, "be a reader."

The thrill of disappearing into a book seemed almost too pleasurable, especially when there were so many other things to do. From books, I experience new worlds and old times. I spend days with characters who teach me about life and writers who teach me how stories are written. Reading is not only my refuge but my classroom, the workshop where I can apprentice myself to master writers and sometimes learn from their mistakes. 

So what took me so long to get back into the habit? "The real culprit here is never your schedule," Stephen Koch says. "It is your boredom — your boredom with the books that you think you are supposed to read."

His solution and the one I've embraced: "Find a book that you want, a book that gives you real trembling excitement, a book that is hot in your hands, and you'll have time galore."

After I read, in a white heat, Richard Price's new novel, "Samaritan," I went out and found a used paperback copy of his "Freedomland." I fell asleep reading it on a plane and in my stupor left it behind, so I went to the library and got a hardcover. I had to finish that book. Right now, I can't tell you how much I'd prefer climbing back in bed and continue reading Jane Smiley's "Moo" -- her satirical look at a large Midwestern university -- than heading off to work.

I'm hooked again.

 [ What are you reading and how do you get the reading done? ]