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.

 
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Kudos
 
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Kudos

Now read this

Nothing, it’s nothing, just a lump, nothing at all, all ends in nothing.

“Hey what’s that lump? Hey did you hear me?” “I’m busy.” “Have you always had that lump?” “What lump? I don’t know.” I hear all of this with not even half my mind, I’m reading a book. “Nate would you come over here?” The conversation... Continue →