Hungry for More

Do you ever go on “reading jags?” I do.

Let me explain. Sometimes I can’t get enough of an author, a series, or just a topic. Right now I’m reading a lot about Tudor England. P.F. Chisholm’s mystery novels set during Elizabeth I’s reign got me hooked on learning more about that time in history, so I took her recommen-dations of some works of history that are entertaining as well as informative, and started immersing myself in the soap opera of Henry VIII’s marriages. I plan to read several histories, ending with a biography of Elizabeth herself. In between I am treating myself to the rest of the novels Chisholm based on the real-life courtier and man of action Sir Peter Carey. I could read all of the novels one right after the other, but I won’t let myself do that. I like to space them out a little.

Now, English history might bore you to death, but there might be something else that you’d like to learn more about. And there’s no better way to learn, in my opinion, than a well-written, engaging book on the topic. A thoroughly researched novel in the hands of a skillful writer can make you feel like you’re there—whether “there” is Tudor England or the banks of the Amazon or a farm in Indiana. So can a good nonfiction book. The highest compliment I can pay a nonfiction account is that it “read like a good novel”—meaning that I didn’t want to put it down, that I wanted to see what happened, that the writer made me care.

The Big Picture
And that’s why I read. I’ve never really explained it to non-readers, because they never ask me, “Why do you spend so much time reading, anyway?” Good question—if you don’t like reading, it can seem like a waste of time unless it’s a how-to book. I don’t read to learn facts and dates, even when I read history. I read for the stories. I happen to think it is a universal human need to hear stories. As the title of a recent compilation of Joan Didion’s work puts it, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Is it a coincidence that so much of the Bible is in story form, and that Jesus taught in stories? I don’t think so.

Franz Kafka said, “A book is an axe to break the frozen sea within us.” That’s it exactly. Good books touch a deep place inside us and make us more fully human. The writer has gone deep into the heart of human experience and brought back a nugget of truth. When I experience that truth—this is what it was like to be this person, in this struggle, at that time—my heart, mind and soul are widened a little and my empathy and compassion grow. I don’t have to agree with a character’s choices to feel for him or her. I don’t have to agree with the author’s view of the world, especially if there is no possibility for grace to shine through the cracks into the broken places. But I am certainly richer when I have seen the world through eyes other than my own.

So how about you? What books have sent you on a “reading jag”—make you hunger for more?

Currently Reading: Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, by David Starkey

Just Finished: Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crimes Unit, by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker