November 7, 2023

Ideal Reading Experience

In the New York Times Book Review interview, there is always a question about one’s ideal reading experience, and this weekend helped me to articulate what mine is, though I think I’ve know it for a while. My ideal reading experience is a day with 25 hours in it, particularly if that day features golden sunlight filtered through what’s left of the leaves on the trees. When I linger in bed first thing, picking up the book from my bedside (my phone so far away it’s unthinkable), and I read and read, and then finally have to head downstairs and confront the task of cooking breakfast…at which point I realize that it’s an hour earlier than I thought, and so back to bed to go, actually finishing my book. This pattern continuing throughout the day, always just a little bit ahead of where I’m supposed to be. Right up until bedtime when it’s 9:34 according to the clock in my kids’ room and I’m hurrying the small one up to her top bunk, and if I’m lucky I’ll get an hour or so of reading in before my own “lights out” at 11pm. Except it’s 8:34, and the rest of the evening is laid out before me like…like… a hammock? Cozy suspension, such a terrific indulgence. I’ve just opened a new book and I love it, and I read and read and read.