How Writers Read (Vol. 3)

Photograph by Teju Cole

I’ve never really worried about writer’s block. I think of breaks from writing more as “installing important updates,” focusing on input rather than output. But lately I’ve been going through a period of reader’s block, a new and frustrating experience. I haven’t been in the mood to read books or even articles. This got me thinking about the reading habits of writers; I wondered how they differed from my own. So I asked thirteen questions to ten writers I admire, working in different genres, in an attempt to discover how writers read.

—Elisa Gabbert

7) When you finish a book, how long do you wait before you start another one?

ALICE BOLIN: I usually start a new one right away? Not sure, I’m not organized.

TEJU COLE: I have always already started. Starting is not the problem…

GRAHAM FOUST: I usually finish books at night and then start another one the next day, but …

RUTH GRAHAM: Usually a few days.

J. ROBERT LENNON: Unless I have some kind of big project looming in my corporeal life, I start something else immediately. Like, without even getting up from the sofa. If I know I’m almost done with something, I make sure the next one is within reach.

ADA LIMÓN: About an hour. Well, that’s not true. A few days? I just finished the Jack London biography, Wolf, three days ago, and since then I’ve been reading poems (Claudia Rankine’s book Citizen and re-reading Elizabeth Bishop letters), but I think I’ll start a new book today. I’m thinking it’ll be non-fiction. I’m on a huge non-fiction kick these days.

LEIGH STEIN: I’ll wait until the next day? But I’m always reading so many books at a time, I’m not sure this applies.

LAURA VAN DEN BERG: No breaks between books, save for periods when all my reading time is swallowed up by life/work craziness.

8) Do you read multiple books at once?

ALICE BOLIN: Nooo. Maybe if they were different genres but I basically have a hard enough time paying attention as it is.

TEJU COLE: I understood your “finish a book” to refer to writing books. Is that what you meant? Anyway, same applies with reading. Lots of things happening simultaneously. I’m so bad with this I even do it with movies. I’m always halfway through about three of them. The ability to watch things on the computer has obviously worsened this vice.

DARCIE DENNIGAN: I’m always reading lots of books, but I almost never finish a book. I’ve read The Waves a million times but I’ve...