Thoughtful

Amber over at Prettier than Napoleon took a fairly cranky dissection of mine and breaks down a false divide between something one reads compulsively, and something one things about hard while or after reading it. I think a lot of this is exactly right:

My mind snagged, though, on the division of books as either conducive to fast reading or to contemplative reading. The latter is not quite the same as being elliptical or something you can dip in and out of. Certain books are elliptical and strange and episodic, in a way that might make them ideal candidates for the sort of on-again-off-again reading that Bachner enjoys,but may also be "unputdownable": you can blow through the interludes and meditations in great gulps, even in a single night, because something (maybe not the plot, but some current of desire) draws you in and refuses to let you surface.

I enjoyed the way Amber describes how a book can get in the way of other things. I think I read differently in the summer than I do in the winter. In the summer, the book is a vehicle for lolling, by the pool, on the porch, in bed in a lagoon of air conditioning before braving the heat. And in winter, the book is the ember I curl myself around, the hot flame that holds my concentration against the cold and gray skies. Both cases are about escape, but I think I read with a certain urgency in the winter.