Had We Worlds Enough and Time

Now here's a question.

The week I've spent with Best Served Cold has seen me through roughly two-thirds of its 550 pages. I've gone a day here and there without delving into Abercrombie's cruel, merciless world, granted, but on those days when I have, I've read for long stretches; a hour at the least, three or four in a single sitting if outside circumstances have allowed it. In total, I've been wrapped up in Monza's ruthless quest for vengeance for about 16 hours.

When all is said and done, I think it's fair to extrapolate that I'll have spent a full day reading this book. And I know that to be unusual. It pains me to admit, but I'm a notoriously slow reader. Particularly given how omnivoracious I am in terms of fiction, in fact - not to mention film, video games and the other media I have an appetite for - my ever-so gradual march through Best Served Cold, much as I'm enjoying it now, frustrates the hell out of me.

In my younger years, when J. K. Rowling had the literary zeitgeist all to herself, I'd hear of readers devouring one of her latterly massive Harry Potter novels in the wee hours between the midnight launches they'd attended and sunup the next morning. I remember avoiding newspapers and the internet entirely for a week after The Half-Blood Prince so as not to have it spoiled for me while I gobbled my gradual way through it. I still haven't read The Deathly Hallows because, despite my efforts, some spoilsport ruined that novel's ending while I was still on the third chapter.

The sheer length of some novels is all it takes for me to overlook them. If it hadn't been for one recommendation after another, I don't know that I'd have read The Name of the Wind; often, when it comes time to choose my next book, I'll opt for the shorter selection simply for the fact that I'll be able to get to the rest quicker. Vast tomes will sit on my shelves for months, even years at a time, unread only because I know it'll be weeks before the stories contained therein are over. These are decisions I make before they've even begun; I can hardly express how much I resent myself for giving into them once and again.

And another thing. The staggering investment of time it would require for me to see through epic SF&F series such as A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin and the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time cycle means that, well... I just haven't tried. I'm sure I'd love them, but I'd be able to read nothing else for so long that I can't quite justify sacrificing all the other fiction I'd miss in so doing.

It can be a real problem, then, reading so slowly, and much as I wish I could make rush headlong through Abercrombie's latest - the better to get to the mounting pile of promising speculative literature that awaits me when Best Served Cold is over - I tell myself that the snail's pace I set when I sit down with a good book also has its advantages.

Five years at Uni dealing with intimidating reading lists for a myriad of English units have left me perfectly capable of skimming through fiction, but honestly, now that I read for my own pleasure, I'd rather not ruin a good narrative by glossing over the depth and texture that I think gradual progress grants. Worlds come alive in new ways when you pore over every detail, imagining the scene before you as if it were painted rather than written. With every word spoken or thought, characters become more complex, more substantial, more relatable than the imperfect impressions a speedy read-through results in. Pages dense with description and exposition - the very sort you'd gloss over if you were reading for any reason other than the innate pleasure of the act itself - can prove vital to a proper understanding of the text in question, developing technique, tone and atmosphere, those intangible literary imperatives that can make or break a book.

I'm deeply suspicious of people who can devour an epic novel in the space of a day, but let me be clear: I certainly don't mean to suggest that if you read faster than I do - and who doesn't? - you're reading wrong, somehow. A thousand thousand factors can and do play into the time it takes for a person to make the great journey from prologue to epilogue, the innumerable concerns of real life and making ends meet not least among them. On the other hand, when I see here and there across the speculative community bloggers who boast of the hundreds of novels they read in 2009 - not to speak of those who manage as many in a month, and they're out there - I can't help but feel a little inadequate.

I love to read. There are few activities in life that I value more highly. I wish with every fibre of my being that each day was a few hours longer that I might spend the precious extra time with my nose buried in one book or another. Every year I resolve to read more than I did the year before. Most years, I manage, but there's never enough time to get to everything I'd like.

But I had a question to pose to you, and for all my meandering, it's a simple one, perhaps deceptively so: how do you read?

This needn't be a pissing contest. Let's just take as given that I read at rougly the same rate as a third-grader, and go from there. I'd be very interested to hear how you go about setting the stage for a long night with a good book, too. Do you listen to music, for instance? Bake a choice few snacks? Soft lighting, a movie soundtrack in my headphones and a nice cup of tea suits me right down to the ground.

Consider it open mic night at The Speculative Scotsman.

To that end, dear readers: over to you...