Good morning (barely), a few small thoughts about coming to books "late".
Conversation
Sometimes when I see people exult about books--be they ones I've written or ones I've recommended--there's an inset apology for coming to it "late," which can mean anything from 3 months to a year or two after the book's release. Post-hype, I think. & it gives me pause!
1
11
172
It gives me pause because as an author, I cannot easily quantify the delight & relief that a book's achieved a small succession of escape velocities: that it's being read outside of its hype-cycle *at all*. That it's grown legs or wings & gone where my gaze can't follow.
2
13
310
So I want to establish that it's a good & beautiful thing for *authors* that our books continue to find readers after the first few bursts of marketing-propellant or award cycles have run out--but I'm also a *reader*, of course, & want to speak to that here too.
2
22
261
As a reader, there is a peculiar pleasure at once quiet & fierce that comes from encountering a book outside the context of its initial reception. (There are different pleasures that come from learning those contexts--I'm still a scholar, for my sins--but that's something else.)
3
11
206
There's a further pleasure in bringing the whole, curious solitude of yourself to a book--reading, not to find out where to situate yourself in a discourse, but to be alone with something--at a crossroads--at the strange intersection of an author's thoughts & your own.
5
30
238
This is the condition in which we read as children, I think, & a condition that is difficult to experience as adults--but that's all the richer for it when we do, because we've already been formed, we've accrued so much experience to bring to the book & feed it, too.
2
6
174
There's something to treasure in that, I think; an experience of books outside of time, outside of expectation, outside the rhythms of call & response. It's something worth cherishing, & that, by my lights, certainly needs no apology.
4
9
166
I'd like us to be wizards to our books, never late or early, finding something crucial & irreplaceable in the encounter one way or another: a seed to sow for later, a stitch in time, a feast, a jewel. Whatever you do with it later--you're not late. You've arrived.
That's all--have a lovely Sunday! I hope you've got something fantastic to read.
9
1
124
Ha, I came to RD a similar way! I had 0 idea what FIFTH BUSINESS was about as a teenager & side-eyed it because I mostly read fantasy--& then I just sank into it completely & it blew me away.
1
I am more of a sorcerer's apprentice - I try to read them all but while I am reading one another two arrive
GIF
read image description
ALT
2
The books I love the most arrive at exactly the right time *for me and my life*, regardless of year of publication or context. That is pure magic. ✨💖📚
1