reading patterns

I finished a book today. Given how often I visit the Oxfam store, make a little donation and pick up a good read in return, this should be a fairly common event and not merit a post. But I've noticed recently that I read in the most erratic of ways. Right after buying, I like to dive into a book with spontaneous excitement. If I have chosen well, this initial effervescence turns into frenzied enthusiasm. As I read more, I fall in love with the characters (fiction) or ideas (non-fiction) and the language. Then the curious thing happens. I become saturated. Having convinced myself that the book is indeed great, wild exuberance cools down to warm satisfaction. The book starts to spend more time on my coffee table than in my hands and is finally relegated to the shelf, replaced by some other volume. There is so much to discover.

At this moment, I'm surrounded by at least ten unfinished books, all purchased this year. I have lost track of most older acquisitions that have merged into my substantial shelves over the years, though some keep standing out. I'm painfully aware that I'm still not done with Orhan Pamuk's Snow, which I purchased a good two years ago, right after its author was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Now the novel is sitting by my bedside, nagging me about bad habits.

As I'm thinking about this, it occurs to me how my distractibility also shows when I read scientific papers. These are very different from the books I buy and read at my leisure. Fascinating content is frequently hidden under a thick layer of gooey prose that's hard to cut through and can make reading a pain. On the other hand, there are numerous references to related papers, which often lead me on an electronic paper chase (thanks to the internet, this bottomless well of information). When I'm tired of a given publication that is nevertheless an essential read – like a report of results pertinent to my research or something assigned for a journal club – I find it easy to seek refuge in another paper. It might be easier to read, and it might even offer complementary insight. What it certainly does is keep me from wrapping up the initial, painful paper in the shortest time possible. However, in contrast to my books, I have to eventually finish the paper I set out with. Many a long afternoon is wasted on such an exercise, often with a pot of slowly cooling coffee by my side.

Tomorrow, I have to give journal club. The paper I'll present was easy to read and didn't keep me occupied for long. A lucky pick, no doubt. The same cannot be said of the book I just put down on my table, it's last page turned. Freakonomics was a publishing phenomenon, but its content does not live up to the hype. While there is original thought in the book, and some of the chapters are insightful, overall it's less than edifying. A few striking examples of common wisdom exposed as flawed thinking is entertaining for a moment but nothing more. The last chapter was just a list of statistics with no substance whatsoever. I'm glad I'm done with it. As I haven't been to Oxfam since, I can go back to an older book, to pages first turned with zeal and then abandoned.