The One-Sitting Read
Dear Reader,
Have you ever enjoyed the pleasure of the one-sitting read?
I imagine you must have, as growing up Dr. Seuss or Bill Peet or P.D. Eastman or some other picture-book author probably figured into your experience. But beyond childhood, have you enjoyed and considered the pleasure? The completeness of finishing a read in one sitting—this is an experience relished by readers of any stripe.
Magazine reading is perhaps the quintessential one-sitting reading. That waiting room classic is always ready for that adventure, though most of us prefer to read a full magazine in one sitting anywhere but a waiting room. (If you’ve read a full magazine in a waiting room, that’s rarely a good visit.)
While I don’t subscribe to any magazines myself, I have been known to read three or four at a clip when I visit the library. And I make certain to tell the librarians of my appreciation for their magazine subscriptions.
But while I don’t subscribe to any magazines presently, I do subscribe to a few literary journals—four to be exact: The Hedgehog Review, The New Atlantis, The Point, and Slightly Foxed. I read my very first issue of The New Atlantis in one sitting (well, it was one evening, as I did remove myself from the couch a few times to stretch and so forth). I planned it that way because I wanted to get a sense for the entire issue—how the editors thought it should be put together.
I should note, however, that I don’t typically read these journals in one sitting. Indeed, I took at least half a year luxuriating my way through “The Evening of Life” from The Hedgehog Review. That one just kept getting better and better, not as in a crescendo but in its cumulative effect.
This is another thing about one-sitting reads: they aren’t designated by the material at hand, necessarily. I read that issue of The Hedgehog Review over an absurdly long stretch of time; I intend to read this summer’s issue, “Questioning the Quantified Life,” in one sitting. (Why? Simply for the pleasure of that idiosyncratic decision. Also, perhaps, because that topic is my sweet spot and I’m intrigued.)
Online reads are preferably one-sitting reads, even if you are standing while reading on your phone. But even so-called longreads can be one-sitting reads. If expertly done, in fact, they can be a delightful sitting (or at least a stretching one). Most online reads don’t seem to stick too long—why I print off most of the articles I really wish to stick in my brain—but that doesn’t mean they are bad one-sitting reads or bad reading in general.
Sports articles and newspapers are typically intended as one-sitting reads. And there’s nothing wrong with this design. I enjoy reading through The Athletic and The Ringer and other such sites for sporting news and analysis. (Old reading habits die hard.) That these reads are intended for one sitting is to their credit. Few readers would wish for more sports or news writing of the generally pedestrian quality and insight they provide. The rare pieces of exquisite journalism, sports or otherwise, are noteworthy for their exceptional nature, not their regular occurrence.
(A small reminder that I’m not being a snob here, at least not in certain ways: I’ve written before about how I consider myself lucky to find two articles in one of the aforementioned journals worthy of consideration beyond the initial read, and some of them aren’t even worth that read. So much “literary” and definitely most academic writing is as pedestrian as that of any hack sports writer. That’s partly why we treasure those reads that are truly well-crafted.)
Short stories are great one-sitting reads. When I have a compilation of short stories from a favorite author, I typically won’t read that whole compilation in one sitting, instead preferring to read each individual story on a separate occasion.
Yet even though short stories individually can be great one-sitting reads, full novels themselves can be great in a single sitting. (I’ve also got Stephen Vincent Benét’s monstrous narrative poem John Brown’s Body on deck for a single sitting, but that one’s probably not happening till December…) Novels make for a satisfying experience to complete—whether that’s because of some leftover influence of school or something more, it’s hard to say. That they are satisfying to complete is certainly not an insight, though!
I think one of the reasons that YA literature is so popular with some adults is that it’s still quite easy to clip through one of those books in one evening. I’m not reading Infinite Jest in one evening. It’s just not happening, not least because what should be footnotes are endnotes, endnotes being a device I mostly despise. Yet a YA novel is absolutely possible in a single evening, making it a great sample of a one-sitting read.
It shouldn’t be assumed from my choice of sample in Infinite Jest that YA novels are the only game in town if you’d like a one-sitting read. Any of the classic world-is-ending dystopian reads—Brave New World, 1984, Anthem, Fahrenheit 451—can be fitted into a single sitting, if you’ve got a full evening or morning.
In fact, the number of shorter “classic” works is extensive. If a person is desirous of reading more classic literature, there are a panoply of options beyond War and Peace, whatever that lengthy novel’s merits. Ask some friends or librarians for ideas here. My own list needs building.
Our novel options aren’t limited to classic works or YA, as many of you have undoubtedly hoped I’d think to mention. There are thrillers and mysteries (a personal favorite—especially Golden Age); there are beach reads and fantasy; there are science fiction and historical fiction. Take your pick and delight.
Here’s to those one-sitting reads,
Kreigh
P.S. You know that stray line I mentioned in the last newsletter, the one from Sir Walter Scott? Well it literally showed up in a movie I saw this week. A number of plot hijinks into the film, the lead character finds himself calling his almost girlfriend purposing to lie to her. He fails at it quite remarkably. And he quotes Sir Walter Scott after she hangs up on him in a huff. Another character in the room livens a bit and responds, “Sir Walter Scott, ‘Marmion’, Canto VI, XVII,” without breaking a sweat. I wonder if the writers of the movie’s screenplay—it nearly a hundred years old—were annoyed with all of the people even then who mistook that line for a Shakespearean one. And so, with the authorial fiat that is the writer’s own, they wrote that bit in there. Also possible they figured everyone would know it, so they might as well put it to use. Regardless, it was an amusing coincidence. And I apparently need to work on getting the whole reference down now myself…
P.P.S. No, you weren’t missing an email last week. I didn’t send a newsletter out! Among an assortment of interruptions, I scratched my right eye and had to limit my screen time to teaching. I’ll consider doubling up posts in a future week to make it up to you.