Finding the time to read

I've been noticing this year that even professional readers are talking about having to carve out time to read books. At the Festival this year, several hosts confessed that they needed to take a week and just read books assigned to them for an event coming up because they'd been too busy all spring to find any time to read. This is the first time I remember hearing this from so many people.

And even when I think about my own time, reading is never something that just comes naturally. I have to schedule time to read. I have to make it a priority or my time will simply disappear. After all, there are movies to see, TV shows to binge-watch, not to mention social events, friends, walking the dog, etc.

Tim Parks considers this issue in his recent article and also what it means to read nowadays. He predicts that certain stylistic features that readers used to revel in, passages which required a reader to slow down and re-read, admire, etc., this kind of writing will disappear. People simply don't have the time to revel in long descriptions or repetition for style's sake.

272 pages: I like this size of novel

I was remarking on this a while back. I was reading Sarah Waters and while I loved the book, one thing which irritated the hell out of me was having 95 page chapters. I just couldn't break up my reading into such long chunks. Generally, I read on the metro, at home after work, before bed, on Fridays, and over the weekends. I don't have any children. But even so, it's hard for me to sit for an entire hour uninterrupted and read. I can do it sometimes but it's not very usual (though it used to be: I remember spending entire afternoons in a chair when I was younger and before I had a cell phone beeping or other distractions).

I think, too, that our reading habits have resulted in these series books: Knausgaard, St-Aubyn, writers who take a story and then write a new "installment" every couple of years. This used to be a death-knell in North American publishing (though the Japanese have been doing this for a long time) but it's now part of the literary landscape. And I have to admit I like it: I like not having to over-commit to one book for a week or two. If it's short, I can read it in a day or two and then move on to something else. Then go back and read Part II later, re-immersing myself in the story.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see how our frenetic and stolen moments of reading will affect the way books are published marketed and consumed.

Back in full swing...

After semi-working at home (reading, writing, catching up on all the little niggly things we can never get to during the year), we are back in our offices full time now, airing out dusty corners, going through the piles of books, galleys, catalogues and magazines that have piled up, and getting kind of excited about what we have on our docket for 2014! Yes, it might seem like an eternity away but before you know it, winter will be here, then spring and our 2014 edition.

Can't say what we have going on yet, but I can say that our 2014 Festival dates are April 29 - May 4, 2014 and will be held at Hotel 10, 10 Sherbrooke Street West, just as we've done the past few years.

One of the first things on my task-list (just finished going through my hundreds of emails, organizing, deleting, replying, puzzling) is to tackle the piles and piles of books we have all over our offices and in my office in particular. That means filing some, tossing some, lending many, and giving some away as promotion! Stay tuned for that!

It's a big messy job keeping track of all these books, but, naturally, we wouldn't have it any other way...

Daytrippers, Guadaloupe and the History of Greenwich Village

Been reading a lot this summer but trying to focus as much as possible on reading during this quiet time because, as past years suggest, I will have limited time once fall is here. So not writing here or doing much else this time of year.

Some books I've had on my summer reading list but haven't managed to get to yet include:

The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians. Since we made it to New York a couple of weeks ago, I've been intrigued by the idea of a book telling the history of one neighborhood, Greenwich Village.

Miguel Marmol:  simply because I've not read anything by a Salvadorean author before and this "Latin American classic" seems like it could be interesting.

The Bridge of Beyond: I love Guadaloupe. Maryse Conde was our grand prize winner a number of years back and since I've read a couple of her works, I've been waiting for another book from the island to fall into my lap. So I'm excited about this upcoming publication. Plus anything by NYRB is going to be cool...

So far the highlight of my summer reading has been Daytripper, a graphic novel by two Brazilian artists (brothers, no less), Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. The book is a revelation: funny, serious, moving, beautifully drawn and terribly entertaining. It tells the life story of a Brazilian writer as he imagines different deaths for himself, considering his complex relationship with his father, his mother, and his best friend. It's really a lovely story and I can't recommend it highly enough...

Hope everyone's summer is moving along without incident!