The Golden Rule of Reading

Chapter One : In which the author takes the plunge

It all started when I was kicked out of the house.

Not in the way you might be thinking. There was no torrent of arguments, no storming recriminations, none of the Gloria Gaynor-style just-turn-around-now-‘cos-you-ain’t-welcome-anymore. No, this was a self-imposed event.

Just over a year ago, we were getting carpet laid throughout the house, and since I had no commitments until midday, I took myself off to the city library for the morning. I brought some work to do, but I thought I’d track down a few books while I was there. I’d been reading my way through the 50 states of the USA (remember the number 50; I’ll come back to that…) and it was time to grab some of the books remaining on my list.

I went to the classic fiction, and soon spotted a couple I wanted. Then I checked on one more: Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song, representing the state of Utah. J, K, L, the M’s must be down on the bottom shelf. I crouched down, saw my target and reached towards it – and then my hand froze. The book was massive. Cautiously, my hand resumed moving, and I pulled the book off the shelf. It was heavy and chunky, a hardback with over 1000 pages. Should I take this book off my list and replace it with something else from Utah? But hadn’t I been looking forward to reading some Norman Mailer for the first time since I was at university? And wasn’t the point of the exercise that I was going to read books I wouldn’t otherwise?

On the back of the book was a quote from Dave Eggers:

“In the event that you’ve just picked up this book, and know little or nothing about it, and are unsure whether you should read it, I want to urge you with all my being that you must read The Executioner’s Song. I want to further guarantee that you will finish it. It’s the fastest 1,000 pages you will ever know.”

Okay, I’d give it a try. I put the two smaller books back on the shelf, and checked out the big one.

Chapter Two: In which the author reverts to childhood

For the previous several years I’d always had a few books on the go, and read when I had a spare half an hour, or before bed, or while waiting in the car. That, I could see, lacked the purposeful planning I’d need to get through a book like this one before its four weeks’ loan was up. To read this, I’d need to actually carve out blocks of time, and ensure that I made an appreciable dent in the book every day. Fortunately, I’d just cancelled a movie channel subscription, and so it was easy to slot reading time into the gap that created. And I loved it! Not just the book, although that was a terrific read, but I also loved the chance to read like I used to when I was a kid. Reading as if there was nothing else quite so worth doing.

It took me three weeks to finish the book, and then I hungrily looked around for what was next. “The fastest 1000 pages you will ever know,” Dave Eggers had promised, and I thought I’d challenge him. Looking at my own bookshelves, I considered The Count of Monte Cristo and The Lord of the Rings. Both over 1000 pages, neither read by me for years and either, I reckoned, would be a faster read than Norman Mailer. I chose Tolkien, and rattled through it in two weeks (“Take that, Dave!”)

Then I looked at my To-Be-Read shelf, overflowing with birthday presents, hauls from community book fairs, books I’d started and never finished, and other ones I’d put there years ago in a fit of misaligned good intentions. Right, I told myself, let’s tackle this now.

Chapter Three: In which the author counts to fifty

In the year since I drew Executioner’s Song so carefully from that library shelf, I’ve read 74 books. That’s nearly one and a half per week, and given that I spent the first five weeks on just two books, it’s pretty good going. Some were okay, some were really enjoyable, and a few were the sort that once you’ve read them, they remain part of your life forever.

What I’ve done is to turn back the clock on my reading habits to when I was a kid, as I said before. I’ve always loved reading all my life – this blog is dedicated to the idea! – but now I was accomplishing so much more.

Here then is the secret, the golden rule of reading: You recall that near the start of this I told you to remember the number 50? Well that’s the number of pages I aim to read each day. A quick glance at a book tells me that it will take me a week to read, because it’s about 350 pages (Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, which I’m currently partway through.) With some books, like Lord of the Rings or a murder mystery, I’ll usually get through more pages than that, but 50 pages is the daily goal.

It means that a book that drags – and, sadly, these do exist – doesn’t drag for long, and before you know it, you’re on the home straight, where even the draggy books tend to pick up the pace, and then you’re on to the next one.

Many years ago, I had taken War and Peace away on a holiday, determined to finally read it, and failed to get out of Book One Part One, overcome by the cast of thousands, all known by multiple names and/or nicknames, and daunted by the 1300 pages I was facing. This time, I just worked my way through it, day after day. Slower than either Norman Mailer or JRR Tolkien, but not by much.

And this time, I really enjoyed it, seeing the way Tolstoy forms his theory of history by brilliantly giving us the lives of assorted characters whose lives are bound up together with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

Could I have made it through without my 50-page golden rule? Past evidence suggests no.

I’m grateful that I changed how I read. So, how about you? Who reads like this already? Which of you snorted, thinking 50 pages is pretty lightweight compared to your own two books a day habit? And who wants to give it a try, and share the joy with me?

Chapter Four: In which the author looks back with pleasure

Finally, just because I can’t resist a good list, out of those 74 books read over the course of a year, here are my ten favourites:

• The Book of Guilt, by Catherine Chidgey
• The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi (and the other two books in this series)
• Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam Jr
• Salvage, by Jennifer Mills
• The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
• Old Glory, by Jonathan Raban
• Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Plus two I’ve already mentioned – Lord of the Rings, and War and Peace

Let me know if you’d like to hear more about any of these!