So Many Books, So Little Time

Abstract

I AM PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE OF WALKING by a bookstore without going into it. Once inside, I am incapable of walking out without at least one book. Not surprisingly, my home is overflowing with books—biographies, novels, public affairs tomes, art books, textbooks, travel guides, poetry volumes, cookbooks, even foreign-language dictionaries—everything from astrophysics (Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time) to Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And like writer T S. the protagonist in John Irving's 1976 novel, The World According to Garp, I take reading very seriously Writers do not read for fun, Garp wrote. As a writer, I consider it my job to be on the lookout for beautiful phrasing, crystalline sentences, excellent exposition. And like many busy people, I read book reviews to help me sort through the hundreds of volumes published every week—to pick out those books that I absolutely must read. C&EN publishes only 20 to 25 ...