Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I am usually a voracious reader even at the worst of times, but
lately I haven't been able to start anything, never mind finish it.
  

    
Not me. Reading has been a joy this year -- right now I'm completely engaged
in Le Carre's _Perfect Spy_  -- before I could never finish anything he
wrote.
.y
  

    
I am so relieved that our local library was only unavailable for a
few minutes. Even now, with spring not quite here, it is a joy to
have an excuse (as if I should need one) to ride my bike to the
library for the excitement of new books to read. (And when the
physical library doesn't cough up my requests fast enough, there are
ebooks - but then, no bike ride).
  

    
I have had such a problem reading over the last year. Maybe it was
too much screen time, maybe too much news. I spent a lot of hours
with cable news like Rachel over the last year. The drama of
political history unfolding was so intense that I was not drawn to
drama in books. I bought books... and they are still unread. I may
need to be camping or at a beach to get to them. Weird times indeed.
 
  

    
I think it is screen time, too. Working on the computer as much as
I've had to this past year has made my eyes tired. I don't want to
read after a long day sitting in front of a screen.
  

    
Or, there may be two phenomena - the way that many of us were
focused on political change and the election last year, and whether
we have energy to read after all of that - or to the extent that
reading, either on screen or in print, helps put all of that at bay.
  

    
I'm finally getting serious about reading again. Ari mentions the
change in the political climate, and I think that drop in anxiety
has me less married to news and social media. 

And after a year, pandemic reality has started to feel like - well,
just life. Less anxious there, too.

As a third, more personal element: I put a better reading light
above my head in the bedroom. Ahhhhhhh. 

Still though, I'm avoiding heavy reading as much as I am serious
movies on painful topics. Chicago 7, Trumbo - not ready yet. Plus I
read a lot of very serious books for my work; I'm doing a
schizophrenia series with the county mental health department, and
that's not a walk in the park as a topic.

So: lots of British comedy on the screen, classics on the bed table. 
  

    
Neither Chicago 7 nor Trumbo was depressing for me. They celebrated
their characters' strength.
  

    
I just finished Hamnet, which is about, among other things, the
bubonic plague. It is absolutely gutting, and one of the best books
I've read in the last few years, and maybe the best novel about
grief I've ever read. I had reservaations about subjecting myself to
it, what with current events, but it was totally worth it..