{"id":91748,"date":"2015-11-09T15:37:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T20:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=91748"},"modified":"2015-11-09T15:43:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T20:43:18","slug":"between-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/09\/between-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_91758\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/strang_alexandria.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91758\" class=\"wp-image-91758 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/strang_alexandria.jpg\" alt=\"Strang_Alexandria\" width=\"600\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/strang_alexandria.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/strang_alexandria-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-91758\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Strang, <i>M\u00fcnchhausen entdeckt die Bibliothek von Alexandria<\/i>, 1895.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I am between books. It\u2019s a very uncomfortable place to be. On the one hand, after finishing something good and thought provoking, you don\u2019t necessarily want to move on too quickly\u2014you want to digest and mourn the loss and crave the comfort of its world. You miss the characters. It would feel jarring to just open another novel and invest your mind and heart fully once again. On the other hand, after enough time, you become restive and begin to yearn for the escape, the absorption and stimulation that only a good book can bring\u2014and you begin to wonder if you can ever feel again the pleasure and compulsion you knew only days ago. Maybe, at last, you\u2019ve read every good book in the world.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There are rebounds, of course\u2014stupid books that take little time and make less impression. There are false starts, which are the worst, and there are attempts to replicate the experience of the last reading. And if you feel really fickle or commitment-phobic, there are essays and stories and poems and letters and beloved favorites to dip into at will. I keep a stack of these on my bedside table, for dry spells.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Part of the problem is the pressures: of classics you ought to read; of friends\u2019 books, written and recommended, that lie unopened\u2014because what if you don\u2019t love them? As long as you haven\u2019t tried, you haven\u2019t failed, and every unread book exists in a state of pure potential: it might change your life. It\u2019s certainly powerful.<\/p>\n<p>A sort of paralysis can set in. This is the dangerous moment. Do you risk it? Or do you wander a bookstore, looking for something perfect, stroking a spine here, tracing a title there, putting the book down before you reach the register and rushing out? It\u2019s reassuring to be scared, still, after all this time. No matter how many books you\u2019ve read, that sense of trepidation always remains.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am between books. It\u2019s a very uncomfortable place to be. On the one hand, after finishing something good and thought provoking, you don\u2019t necessarily want to move on too quickly\u2014you want to digest and mourn the loss and crave the comfort of its world. You miss the characters. It would feel jarring to just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17,2574,20141,7148,19500,12237,53,354],"class_list":["post-91748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-books","tag-bookstores","tag-choosing","tag-libraries","tag-liminal-spaces","tag-readers","tag-reading","tag-recommendations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On Being Between Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"November 9, 2015 \u2013 I am between books. It\u2019s a very uncomfortable place to be. 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