BTT: Contemplation

So … you’ve just finished reading a book. For the sake of the discussion, we’ll say it was everything a book should be—engaging, entertaining, interesting, thought-provoking. The kind you want to gush over. The question is—do you immediately move on to your next book? Or do you take time to contemplate this writerly masterpiece and all its associated thoughts/emotions/ideas for a while first?

The short answer would be, “Not nearly enough time.” There are many books I probably should turn right around and reread immediately in order to absorb the ideas. I journal a little but despair of ever getting all the quotations that speak to me transcribed in my steadily deteriorating handwriting.

Over the last year I’ve made an effort to slow my reading down so that I can think about it more as I’m working my way through a book. I think those forced pauses, when I go and do something else and let it percolate, are probably more effective than “debriefing” after I’m all finished.

Writing reviews on my blog is kind of an abbreviated debriefing after I finish a book. It’s a way of recording the reactions that rise to the surface out of all the many that have occurred during the reading process. This is one of the things that keeps me blogging. This space provides a more complete record of reading than I’ve ever managed before. Good books shape us and become a part of us (maybe bad books do too…?), but the written record helps me to remember how a given book may have done that.

How about you?