A Year in Reading: Patrick Somerville
Faculty member Patrick Somerville takes a look back at 2012 for The Millions:
My wife and I welcomed a son into the world in November of 2011, which spelled a bit of an adjustment to my reading habits this year and — if I’m being honest — a bit of an amplification to my TV-watching. I had less total private hours, and for the first time in my life I therefore found myself planning what I would read — sometimes months in advance — instead of naturally drifting from book to book, tracing the threads of this or that conversation with a friend, recalling a review, or happening upon something entirely unexpected.
There is romance and intellectual gratification to such wandering; my 2012 way is a little sad and a lot less sexy, but I have also found that time restrictions this year have made me read with more care, and with more appreciation for writers who sacrifice so much of their personal lives and creative vitality just to make something.
Which is to say that I read books with added admiration in 2012, and I read with renewed marvel at how many different tones, and emotions, and forms, and kinds of stories are possible with text and language as a foundation. Here is a little something about three that I liked a lot...[Keep Reading]…
Patrick is the author of This Bright River: A Novel
