Confessions of a compulsive reader

Hi, everyone. My name is Sharan and I'm a reading addict.

"Hi, Sharan" I look out over the group. I can see dogeared paperbacks sticking out of purses and pockets. Some people are knitting to keep their hands from straying to the next page. Others pretend to be taking notes but they are really trying to get to the end of the chapter on their e-readers. I don't blame them. They say compulsive reading is more addictive than heroin or tobacco.

I continue. "As I child I read under the covers with a flashlight. I read through algebra class. I missed my bus stop because my nose was in a book. I nursed my baby with a book in my hand. In a restaurant, I resort to reading the fine print on the menu or the ingredients of the ketchup. I nearly lost a job because I couldn't put down One Hundred Years of Solitude. "

There were nods of encouragement and sighs of familiarity. Everyone has been there. No one at the meeting has yet succeeded in kicking the habit. They are more likely to subversively pass each other reading lists as they leave.

"However," I add. "I have discovered one way to cut down on those all-day marathons with fantasy sagas or sleepless nights because you can't wait to find out who did it."

They all lean forward, not sure they want to know. "Become a professional writer," I conclude.

The other members relax. Most of them have an unfinished manuscript in a drawer but few are insane enough to want to finish it if it means time away from reading. The meeting ends in amity. Some of my fellow bibliomaniacs give me consoling pats on the back as we leave.

Now, this is the paradox; no one can become a good writer unless they read voraciously. But, once a book sells, and then another, life is taken up with research and the dreaded deadlines. The days of curling up with a glass of wine and a convoluted mystery have to be curtailed or the work will never be done. It's not a matter of subconscious plagiarism; it's getting so involved in someone else's world that your own seems boring by comparison. Why else is reading so addictive?

Obviously, I am unable to go cold turkey. I started slowly. When my daughter was a baby I realized that it was dangerous for her to have a mother operating under the influence of a seven-part novel spanning three hundred years. I cut down to short mysteries. But it was when I began to write as a job that things got tough. Finally I had to lay down the law. I can only read fiction on planes or other public transportation. No novels for the wait at the dentist's office. It's too tempting to go back to them once I'm home. Of course, now I plan my trips with the longest route possible, just to get in more reading time. I'll be at Malice Domestic in April and am thrilled with the idea of a cross-country flight. In May I go to Italy and for that I already have a reading pile started.

I only hope I don't come back unable to resist the rest of a series. Otherwise I may never finish a book again.

Ps, Just curious, what is the worst trouble people have gotten into because they couldn't put a book down?

Comments

[Susan Shea]

Funny, Sharon. I remember the days and nights when I indulged in a couple hundred pages of a good book and felt guilty afterward. But you're right - when you start to write your own, it's impossible to do that any more. I can't remember the last time I read a whole book in one or two nights and I feel guilty if I read for fun at all during the day, although why I don't feel even more guilty drifting around Facebook and other online grazing sites I can't fathom. They're much worse - just tidbits rather than a full fledged escape!

[Kathy Lynn Emerson]

The worst trouble, you ask? That would be at age eight or so when, lacking a flashlight, I read under the covers by the light of a bare lightbulb . . . and scorched the pillowcase. Mom was not happy!

[Mysti Berry]

I've missed my BART stop more than once, the Embarcadero, which means a long ride into West Oakland, and two stories of escalator surfing to get a train going the other way, back to work--but my boss doesn't get mad at me either.

Come to think of it, the year in seventh grade when I had a pretty weak English teacher, I just sat there reading Atlas Shrugged while the class swirled on around me. I always got good grades on tests and whatnot, so she left me alone. (hey, I had NO IDEA what I was reading!).

I didn't even get in trouble when I read "that" page of the Exorcist...

But I have a very short attention span. Maybe the folks around me were just grateful that I was quiet and occupied :)

[sharan newman]

It is a good point that we've replaced purposeful reading with aimless Internet surfing. But it is easier to click back to the book in progress. I'm afraid of what would happen if I had world enough and time to read all day. I'd probably be found years hence, covered in cobwebs but finally have finished Don Quixote!

[Ann Parker]

Hmmm. Worst trouble? When I got trapped in the Lord of the Rings trilogy before finals week at UC Berkeley. I still remember the panic of *not being able to stop reading* The Return of the Kin at 2 a.m., with a physics final creeping up mere hours away.
I don't recall how the final went, but I guess I squeaked through...

[sharan newman]

That shows what was really important. You remember getting the ring to Modor but not passing the final. I think you've got it right.

[Priscilla]

This post was a delight. Thanks, Sharan! As for finding extra time on trips to read? Try trains. Of course, those won't get you to Italy from here...

[Heather Alice]

In trouble while reading??? Yes, while driving! Before books on tape, there was just paper books and a cross country trip from PA to Oregon. It was Nebraska...have you ever driven across Nebraska? Every one was asleep, early morning, I can not remember the book, but thankfully it is flat in western Nebraska and I just ran over a bunch of grass. It did get me out of driving the rest of the way across Nebraska :-)

[sharan newman]

I can see it. One eye on the book and the other on the road. Another reason why we should keep developing driverless cars.

[Vicky Slonosky]

Like Ann, I can't remember how many novels I read in between chapters of physics texts during finals, but overall the worst thing is the chronic lack of sleep from compulsive reading. I don't understand how I can stay up so late reading *a book I've already read*. My solution has been audiobooks, with a timer. An added bonus is that I can also listen during otherwise boring tasks ( folding laundry, peeling potatoes, computer programming...)