rhythm of reading and publishing
I just finished a collection of columns Nick Hornby wrote for the Believer over a ten year period. I am near the end of a collection of short pieces E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker over a span of fifty years. I enjoyed both books and am glad I read them - I would do it again if I had it to do over - but I wonder if I read them wrong. I don’t mean I misread them so much as I got the rhythm wrong. These pieces were never meant to be read together all in one go like other books. They were meant to be read with a break between them, and alongside other writing. They’re olives, they’re raw onion, they’re great with other things and they’re less suitable for being the sole substance of a main course. I should have read them one piece day, or maybe two, alongside other books.