Thank you, Rona. You are certainly an exceptionally thoughtful commenter on posts and I huge appreciate that. I agree there's something special about the dynamic of reading something you enjoy and moves you by a writer you admire - and being able to comment. Sometimes, when I'm reading an essay by Woolf or Lamb or Orwell in hard copy, I jab at the page hoping a comment box will appear so that I can tell (for example) VW how much I admire her wondrous sentences...
This is insightful as always and helped me in a way you might not expect - as a Substack writer. On a good day and most of the time, I describe my Substack as a creative outlet and even a "lifeline" and a valuable connection to what I'm passionate about. But on a bad day, I've told a colleague or two that might be expressing admiration, "Yeah, but it doesn't really lead to anything," which echoes the possible futility-factor you express here about reading. Your answer to that encourages me to think of my essays also as an "indeterminate state of being or becoming." That helps and is lovely! 💮
Gosh, Plain Jane, I'm humbled to think my essay might have been useful to you in that way! I'd add that your essays on JA make me see her work differently; what your work "leads to" or helps become, is a new state in my mind, which is invisible, of course, to you. But it exists.
Jeffrey, you’re speaking for me. My reading now revolves around Substack and War and Peace (an extension of Substack, via the readalong). I subscribe to far more good or even exceptional writers than I have time to read, and tend to focus on a small number, like you, whom I have come to know. With Substack, unlike books, there’s the expectation that we will comment thoughtfully on one another’s work, and it can be hard to weigh in without multiple readings. While this “expectation” may be self-imposed, I’ve found Substack most rewarding when I pay attention to other writers’ work, not just my own. Many of us are visibly growing as writers through the weekly striking of sparks. I know there are many other writers whose work I would savor if time allowed, as perhaps it will after War and Peace.
Since I learned to read, I have been an avid reader. Yet there have been seasons in my life when my mind was too weary to read. The last was 2020-2022, when busy 12 hour nursing shifts left me worn out even on my days off - I reread a few lighter books and only slowly made it through one or two weightier books each year. One of them was 'The Island of the World', one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
Thank you, Deirdre. I know the feeling! Now that the brutal summer has abated and autumn has arrived here, I hope to reset my reading habits a little, perching on our tiny balcony. I love reading in the open air.
5 hrs ago·edited 5 hrs agoLiked by Jeffrey Streeter
Jeffrey, I think may writer-readers on Substack (a distinct community of its own, with connection to others) face this tension between reading on and off Substack, which is in some ways unique to the writer-reader. I struggle with it. I've come to limit my Substack reading to maintain that greater connection to the outer world of literature at the scope I want. Yet I do value the community here very much and do want to add more of the talented writers I know are here to my more regular reading list. Thus, the tension.
As to your question about the final shape or purpose of our reading, I've long found it in some of my very favorite lines of poetry you quote (so many of my favorite lines are from Auden): "it survives, /
A way of happening, a mouth." That's it for me.
You know, that poem provided the title of my very first essay on Substack and the lines I quote as epigraph on my About page. And then, Auden chose to live out his life in New York City, so . . .
I'll be writing about him in the next couple of weeks.
Thank you, Jay, for such a great response. I'm convinced there's a golden mean somewhere in terms of Substack reading, somewhere between replenishment and overindulgence, though I also know I haven't found it and further suspect that it will keep shifting even if I do locate it.
I love that you used Auden's elegy in your first post here! I feel honoured to be following in your footsteps in that way. I just checked out the post. I'm a Coen brothers fan too, by the way.
Such a joy to read your thoughts on reading, Jeffrey. I share many of these feelings about it. I wrote in one of my first posts here about 'reading less but reading better.' It's something I philosophically believe in but have a hard time executing. Reading should feel fully immersive and I feel as if I am often moving between or quickly through too much at the moment - Substack, yes - but mostly through teaching in the particular place I am in an extremely high volume so that even the works I'm teaching get swallowed up in some jumpy ping-pong state.
So thanks for the reminder to make it a priority at any cost :)
"Reading less but reading better" is a great motto.
My own part-time "day job" keeps me busy reading scientific articles, some far too technical for me. Which refreshes me for reading literature, I now realise.
I also find reading serialised novels on Substack, like yours, is great for me, as it keeps me reading fiction, which I really find I need to keep my mind fresh. So thank you so much for that!
Thank you Jeffrey, for your beautifully expressed meditation on reading. I feel you would enjoy Wonderworks by Dr Angus Fletcher, or you could listen to the podcast ep with Brené Brown. Fletcher argues that various literary devices are technological developments to create changes in the human brain. Fascinating.
Thank you, Michelle! Wonderworks looks fascinating. I wonder if it's on Kindle 🙂? I used to listen to books being read on the radio when I was a teenager (my first experience of Middlemarch!) but for some reason, I haven't got into the habit of audio books or podcasts.
I became addicted to Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us during Lockdowns. I find reading text or screens tires me quickly so I mostly read audiobooks these days. I did buy Wonderworks in hardcover when it came out. I believe you can get transcripts of the podcast if you’d rather read that way.
Your essay was a wonderful surprise for me today! Exceptional contemplating of one's reading journey and habits. My mind is now a swirl in thinking of my own reading and what my journey with books has been for me, and what it is currently. We are each quite unique when it comes to our reading habits, and in our choices made in relation to reading. Good read! Thank you for providing the audio to your post; a dimension was added that felt much like frosting on a cake. Blessings ~Wendy💜
Thank you Wendy, and welcome! I agree that we are all diffrent when it comes to reading, which makes discussion/dialogue about it so potentially enriching. Thank you for reading!
Thank you, Albert. I agree that we don't (or shouldn't) judge. I guess my (fanciful) speculations are about whether our reading survives in some form in the universe.
I also find Substack disruptive to my reading habits, and also the fact that most of the sources for my own stack are only available digitally. I haven't read a paper book in months.
I read older books. Modern (last 5 years) books are a bit too manufactured for my liking. I haven't read all of Dickens, Steinbeck, Leigh Brackett yet.
P.s. anyone looking for fun, reviews about good books without worrying about the Zeitgeist should check out Scott Bradfield's YouTube channel. The Master Bather puts the joy into reading
I read the books that people mention in their Substacks and ones that my friends and family are reading. In that way, books are the source of a common bond that allows us to converse and think together.
My first response to the “what I read on Substack” posts was a feeling of “Wait, is this social media? Am I being tracked, and if so, why?” I saw my top three, according to Substack, and it was quite surprising that two of them made the cut. The word count could have come from anywhere. Did I read those posts and Notes to the end, or just the first sentence? It was just odd, useless information, and maybe a little creepy, except for the fact that they showed me just how much time I was spending on Substack, while the books I’d purchased and had not yet read were taking over the floor and colonizing my desk.
But Substack is just so interesting. Like this article, Jeffrey. I’m blaming you.
Thank you, Mary! I am glad to know I wasn't the only one who found the summer reading stats just a little odd.
I'm hoping to rebalance my reading now that autumn is here. It feels time for a reset. But then I know that I'll get engrossed in another wonderful essay on "Writer, interrupted..." Two can play the blame game 🙂.
Thank you, Rona. You are certainly an exceptionally thoughtful commenter on posts and I huge appreciate that. I agree there's something special about the dynamic of reading something you enjoy and moves you by a writer you admire - and being able to comment. Sometimes, when I'm reading an essay by Woolf or Lamb or Orwell in hard copy, I jab at the page hoping a comment box will appear so that I can tell (for example) VW how much I admire her wondrous sentences...
Your essays are like chocolate chip cookies, Jeffrey: I come for the crunchy cookie of your thoughts, and stay for the gooey chocolate of your quotes.
Thank you, Portia, for that cleverly yummy response!
This is insightful as always and helped me in a way you might not expect - as a Substack writer. On a good day and most of the time, I describe my Substack as a creative outlet and even a "lifeline" and a valuable connection to what I'm passionate about. But on a bad day, I've told a colleague or two that might be expressing admiration, "Yeah, but it doesn't really lead to anything," which echoes the possible futility-factor you express here about reading. Your answer to that encourages me to think of my essays also as an "indeterminate state of being or becoming." That helps and is lovely! 💮
Gosh, Plain Jane, I'm humbled to think my essay might have been useful to you in that way! I'd add that your essays on JA make me see her work differently; what your work "leads to" or helps become, is a new state in my mind, which is invisible, of course, to you. But it exists.
🙏🌼
Thanks so much, Jeffrey, for saying that! I appreciate you and this Substack community so much, more each day.
Jeffrey, you’re speaking for me. My reading now revolves around Substack and War and Peace (an extension of Substack, via the readalong). I subscribe to far more good or even exceptional writers than I have time to read, and tend to focus on a small number, like you, whom I have come to know. With Substack, unlike books, there’s the expectation that we will comment thoughtfully on one another’s work, and it can be hard to weigh in without multiple readings. While this “expectation” may be self-imposed, I’ve found Substack most rewarding when I pay attention to other writers’ work, not just my own. Many of us are visibly growing as writers through the weekly striking of sparks. I know there are many other writers whose work I would savor if time allowed, as perhaps it will after War and Peace.
Since I learned to read, I have been an avid reader. Yet there have been seasons in my life when my mind was too weary to read. The last was 2020-2022, when busy 12 hour nursing shifts left me worn out even on my days off - I reread a few lighter books and only slowly made it through one or two weightier books each year. One of them was 'The Island of the World', one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
Thank you, Holly. I hadn't heard of that novel and will check it out.
I love your notion of "seasons" here - perhaps as you suggest there are reading seasons and non-reading seasons in our lives?
Loved this. I feel like I need to retrain myself to be a better reader of books. Most of the time I can read 2 paragraphs before I fall asleep.
Thank you, Deirdre. I know the feeling! Now that the brutal summer has abated and autumn has arrived here, I hope to reset my reading habits a little, perching on our tiny balcony. I love reading in the open air.
And then these words from William Carlos Williams:
My heart rouses
thinking to bring you news
of something
that concerns you
and concerns many men. Look at
what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
despised poems.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
—from Asphodel, that Greeny Flower
Jeffrey, I think may writer-readers on Substack (a distinct community of its own, with connection to others) face this tension between reading on and off Substack, which is in some ways unique to the writer-reader. I struggle with it. I've come to limit my Substack reading to maintain that greater connection to the outer world of literature at the scope I want. Yet I do value the community here very much and do want to add more of the talented writers I know are here to my more regular reading list. Thus, the tension.
As to your question about the final shape or purpose of our reading, I've long found it in some of my very favorite lines of poetry you quote (so many of my favorite lines are from Auden): "it survives, /
A way of happening, a mouth." That's it for me.
You know, that poem provided the title of my very first essay on Substack and the lines I quote as epigraph on my About page. And then, Auden chose to live out his life in New York City, so . . .
I'll be writing about him in the next couple of weeks.
Thank you, Jay, for such a great response. I'm convinced there's a golden mean somewhere in terms of Substack reading, somewhere between replenishment and overindulgence, though I also know I haven't found it and further suspect that it will keep shifting even if I do locate it.
I love that you used Auden's elegy in your first post here! I feel honoured to be following in your footsteps in that way. I just checked out the post. I'm a Coen brothers fan too, by the way.
Such a joy to read your thoughts on reading, Jeffrey. I share many of these feelings about it. I wrote in one of my first posts here about 'reading less but reading better.' It's something I philosophically believe in but have a hard time executing. Reading should feel fully immersive and I feel as if I am often moving between or quickly through too much at the moment - Substack, yes - but mostly through teaching in the particular place I am in an extremely high volume so that even the works I'm teaching get swallowed up in some jumpy ping-pong state.
So thanks for the reminder to make it a priority at any cost :)
"Reading less but reading better" is a great motto.
My own part-time "day job" keeps me busy reading scientific articles, some far too technical for me. Which refreshes me for reading literature, I now realise.
I also find reading serialised novels on Substack, like yours, is great for me, as it keeps me reading fiction, which I really find I need to keep my mind fresh. So thank you so much for that!
Thank you Jeffrey, for your beautifully expressed meditation on reading. I feel you would enjoy Wonderworks by Dr Angus Fletcher, or you could listen to the podcast ep with Brené Brown. Fletcher argues that various literary devices are technological developments to create changes in the human brain. Fascinating.
Thank you, Michelle! Wonderworks looks fascinating. I wonder if it's on Kindle 🙂? I used to listen to books being read on the radio when I was a teenager (my first experience of Middlemarch!) but for some reason, I haven't got into the habit of audio books or podcasts.
I became addicted to Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us during Lockdowns. I find reading text or screens tires me quickly so I mostly read audiobooks these days. I did buy Wonderworks in hardcover when it came out. I believe you can get transcripts of the podcast if you’d rather read that way.
Your essay was a wonderful surprise for me today! Exceptional contemplating of one's reading journey and habits. My mind is now a swirl in thinking of my own reading and what my journey with books has been for me, and what it is currently. We are each quite unique when it comes to our reading habits, and in our choices made in relation to reading. Good read! Thank you for providing the audio to your post; a dimension was added that felt much like frosting on a cake. Blessings ~Wendy💜
Thank you Wendy, and welcome! I agree that we are all diffrent when it comes to reading, which makes discussion/dialogue about it so potentially enriching. Thank you for reading!
"But does the reading go anywhere? What does a lifetime of reading add up to?"
Why does it have to "add up" to anything? No one's judging me (or you).
Thank you, Albert. I agree that we don't (or shouldn't) judge. I guess my (fanciful) speculations are about whether our reading survives in some form in the universe.
I also find Substack disruptive to my reading habits, and also the fact that most of the sources for my own stack are only available digitally. I haven't read a paper book in months.
I read older books. Modern (last 5 years) books are a bit too manufactured for my liking. I haven't read all of Dickens, Steinbeck, Leigh Brackett yet.
Thank you, James. I often find myself gravitating towards older works too. But I enjoy contemporary stuff too (if I can make the time to read it).
P.s. anyone looking for fun, reviews about good books without worrying about the Zeitgeist should check out Scott Bradfield's YouTube channel. The Master Bather puts the joy into reading
I read the books that people mention in their Substacks and ones that my friends and family are reading. In that way, books are the source of a common bond that allows us to converse and think together.
"The source of a common bond that allows us to converse and think together" is such a lovely idea, beautifully expressed, Lynn. Thank you.
My first response to the “what I read on Substack” posts was a feeling of “Wait, is this social media? Am I being tracked, and if so, why?” I saw my top three, according to Substack, and it was quite surprising that two of them made the cut. The word count could have come from anywhere. Did I read those posts and Notes to the end, or just the first sentence? It was just odd, useless information, and maybe a little creepy, except for the fact that they showed me just how much time I was spending on Substack, while the books I’d purchased and had not yet read were taking over the floor and colonizing my desk.
But Substack is just so interesting. Like this article, Jeffrey. I’m blaming you.
Thank you, Mary! I am glad to know I wasn't the only one who found the summer reading stats just a little odd.
I'm hoping to rebalance my reading now that autumn is here. It feels time for a reset. But then I know that I'll get engrossed in another wonderful essay on "Writer, interrupted..." Two can play the blame game 🙂.