Why I’m no longer binge-reading

I had been counting down the days and, when I went for my lunchbreak on 19th July, it was a genuine challenge not to break into a run or, at the very least, skip as I hurried to Waterstones on Winchester High Street. I found what I was looking for on a table opposite the till – there, in a gloriously yellow dust jacket, was Barney Norris’ new book, The Vanishing Hours.

I held the book in my hands, skimming my thumb across the edge of the pages as the words of the story flowed through my hands. Previously, I’d have paid for the book and run off as quickly as I could to find somewhere quiet to start reading, but I chatted to the bookseller, paid for the book, and returned to work. For the rest of the afternoon, I was conscious of the presence of the book in my bag and I felt impatient to be able to read it. When I sat down with the book that evening, I read slowly, soaking up the words, allowing each passage to resonate and pausing to re-read particular sentences. I read a few, wonderful pages in this way, then I found a bookmark and put the book down.

If you told me a few years ago that I would take half an hour to read a few pages of a book, and that would be my entire reading for that evening, I wouldn’t have believed you. My reading habits have changed drastically. Gone are the days of churning through several books in a week. I am no longer a binge-reader.

I was a fairly lazy reader when I was a child. It wasn’t that I was a reluctant reader, quite the opposite, but that I deliberately chose books that I knew I could polish off quickly and I was unadventurous, taking a long time to finally admit that yes, I had outgrown the Animal Ark series, and books by Jacqueline Wilson. This laziness persisted until relatively recently, when I was struck by the sheer pointlessness of churning through books as quickly as I was able to, scarcely taking in the words ‘The End’ before picking up the next book and racing to finish it. I read so many books that I struggled to recall characters, plotlines and settings within a fortnight of completion. Not all books need to be read critically, but even those which cried out for pause, processing and consideration were read briskly and then abandoned.

When I discovered the work of Barney Norris, it was a game-changer. I stumbled across Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain in a bookshop, and bought it because the setting appealed to me: the story is set in Salisbury, which is a stone’s throw from where I grew up. The book enraptured me, with a cast of compelling characters, and the portrayal of Salisbury being written into the book so exquisitely that it almost becomes a character. I read the book over the course of a week, which was a considerable drop in pace for me, because the whole story was so masterfully written that it made me want to take my time.

When Barney’s second book, Turning for Home, was released last year, it was the first time that I had keenly awaited the release of a new book since I’d counted down for the Harry Potter series. Yet, when I got the book home, I read it slowly and carefully, pausing over certain phrases or sentences and reading sections aloud to my husband. It was like going on a long awaited holiday and not wanting the week to end too quickly. I drew Turning for Home out over several weeks and discovered something else about binge-reading – when I read quickly, my brain didn’t process the emotions of the story, but when I slowed down, I felt everything. When I finished Turning for Home, I wept and wept.

I’ve recently finished* my first novel. I’ve been working on it for 18 months and every sentence has been constructed with care, and every word carefully weighed. Chapters have been cut or rewritten, the structure of the story has been dismantled and put together again, and I’ve written about five drafts. This, too, has taught me the importance of reading with more care and appreciation to the author for writing the story – writing a book is a lot of work!

Of course, some books are delightful binge reads and always will be- the Bridget Jones series springs to mind. The way I see it, an ice-cream needs to be eaten quickly before it melts, but an afternoon tea needs to be savoured and enjoyed. I’m pleased that, at the age of 26, I have finally learned that not all books are ice-creams.

* As much as such a thing is ever finished! What ‘finished’ means is that I’m finally at a stage where I’m ready to move on to my next novel. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s publishable or perfect, just that I consider it ‘done’ for the time being!