The Mid-Read Switch
Dear Reader,
Just yesterday I was reading a piece that was casually recommended by a friend of a friend. I read it somewhat dispassionately, as I hadn’t a real stake in the piece. Suddenly, though, I found myself grabbed—I felt myself being sucked into the stakes of the piece.
And so, mid-piece, my read switched. There’s a quote from a book on magazine writing that says the writer is “someone who grabs you by the shoulder and says ‘now look here, I’ve got to show you this thing’.”
(I both love and hate that quote, only because whenever I write, I recall it and wonder whether I really wish to grab anyone by the shoulder and whether there’s anything so pressing I must show them. I love the quote because certain writers do act upon their readers in such manner.)
This writer indeed grabbed me by the shoulder, and I decided to see the thing she had placed in front of me. While on first read I can’t say that she stuck the landing—never an easy task—everything to that point was just, well, gripping.
I kept reading because the prose was so set to its task, the structure so calmly inviting.
In a certain sense, I started reading the piece as a writer (though why, I couldn’t say, as I have no hope of replicating that), but unlike many occasions when I get annoyed by the craft of the writer interrupting my read, on this occasion I was perfectly delighted. I should not have been intrigued. Yet I was.
The mid-read switch is an odd specimen. We start out reading for one reason—utility, courtesy, whatnot—but mid-read our motivations or, more accurately, experience shift.
The shift isn’t always pleasant—the hate read can quite easily appear mid-read. Indeed, I do my best to avoid hate reads. I’m frankly pretty annoyed when they emerge in a piece where I hadn’t anticipated getting necessarily riled up (this is the nature of the hate read). But sometimes you find yourself mid-piece and you have to shift from mild curiosity to a focused frustration.
Still, I find most mid-read shifts of the pleasant or innocuous variety. Perhaps I’ve selected a read that I thought would be about writing craft and instead I find it tells me much more about reading comprehension (looking at you, Stanley Fish). Perhaps I think a tale will take me to fantastical lands and instead find that it reflects more of my own country than the coarsest bits of historical analysis.
These reads can shift under our gaze. Sometimes we observe our mid-read switch; in others, we don’t recognize that a shift occurred until the read is finished.
So, have you ever experienced the mid-read switch? A read where your interest moved from casual to intense? Or perhaps it moved in the reverse direction, from intrigued to bored?
For myself, I find mid-read switches most interesting when they are like my experience yesterday: a read I had no business appreciating, about matters outside my concern. And yet I switched from passive engagement to keen enjoyment.
Happy reading to you,
Kreigh
P.S. I know a piece on bibliophilia is supposed to be forthcoming and that a piece on book covers is also supposed to be forthcoming (and yet another piece on the gifting of books), but I wanted to share a few gems now because I realize that some people are shopping early for the holidays. I’m also including these here because The Folio Society could almost offer its own piece, as a sort of intersecting case study. I came across it myself only a few years ago when a friend sent me a bit of that publisher’s magic.
I write quite a bit about accelerating readers of any stripe and also encouraging reluctant readers into becoming, well, less reluctant ones. I haven’t written about either of those camps recently, but I’ll simply mention once more that what entices a reader into reading more is fairly complicated and frankly unpredictable by experts or algorithms. There are parameters, yes, but I will never not be surprised by what essays and books grab a reader’s fancy and turn that reader into a more eager one.
One thing that entices quite a few readers is the presentation of the book, the art of the design and binding and all of that. Add an oddball title or adventurous theme, and some great alchemy can appear. For example, The Spy’s Bedside Book would likely appeal to children of many sizes, and is not intended for children at all—all the more reason to capture the smaller set’s interest. It’s the illustrations, however, that make this book a gem.
Speaking of lurking in dark corners, we are absolutely in ghost tale season, and this lush collection of chilling tales will grab a certain set of readers. I’ve had the luck of teaching some ghost tales recently—yes, I do find ways of making my job interesting—and this specific collection would be quite the thing for readers with interest in scary stories or simply “the greatest of writers of ghost stories.”
Because I have terrible taste, I often consider this next one to be the greatest American novel. A Confederacy of Dunces is an absurd tale that deserves an excellent treatment. Props to The Folio Society on this one.
Wrapping things up: humor wins. I read to this day because of re-reading The Laugh Book as a kid. If there’s a science buff in the family, this classic’s practically a must. (No, I don’t own it or any of these FS editions, sadly. In this specific case, I’d rather read E.A. Burtt’s book for the same insights Thomas Kuhn offers. But Kuhn’s is better known, and this edition is LEGIT.) Last, if you celebrate Christmas, you know this is the one you or someone you love needs.
Lest it seem like I fancy only expensive books, one of my favorite books is an unadorned, mass-market paperback compilation of short stories that sells for about eight bucks. But beautiful books have their place, too. And they sometimes draw in more half-interested readers than a plain text might do. Consider the above for yourself and others as you like, for whatever kind of holiday.