Reading chains
feeling of emptiness without reading something
I have a voracious appetite for reading. Let me correct that. I listen to audiobooks and I have an extreme obsession with them. Audible and Scribd are my primary listening platforms.
Over the last few months, my listening had come down quite a bit, especially since January due to my health issues. My listening was highly correlated to my exercise routine. I always listened to books while I was on my elliptical or my rower. And during my lunchtime or evening walks. And while I did my chores like lawn mowing, the laundry, or the vacuuming. And it all added up…
After nearly three months of nearly no reading - I finally forced myself to listen to books again. As I no longer exercise, I had to retrain to start closing my eyes and just listening to books. I completed my first book in a long time with Daniel Dennett’s “Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting” - this being the second book on “Free Will” after Sam Harris’s “Free Will” which I read before this one.
My readings follow certain themes for a period of time. The next theme is mostly on human learning, dialogues, and knowledge acquisition/synthesis. My current reading is “On Dialogue: 2nd Edition” by David Bohm
The next couple of books in my pipeline to be read include:
How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens by Benedict Carey
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist
Sometimes after finishing a particular book I am stuck spending time figuring out what to read next. Something akin to aimless scrolling around on the Netflix menu looking for the next series or movie to watch.
The books I read ultimately form a kind of “Reading chain” - each book that I read opens up some new questions and these related topics are the basis of my next read. A chain of interrelated abstract links from one book to another.
What are you reading now? Why are you reading a particular book? And how do you pick what to read next?