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One of the occupational hazards — and a painful irony — of my job at Seven Days is that I don't have time to read ... books.
I spend almost every waking hour working on this newspaper, except the ones I devote to daily exercise and the occasional social gathering. At the end of the day, which usually wraps up in the wee hours, I need to sleep. Sometimes I stay awake a little longer to read in bed — flat on my back, with inadequate lighting — but I can't do it every night, so I tend to lose my place in a long narrative. A New Yorker story is my limit.
Lack of leisure time aside, another problem is that after 28-plus years of editing, my brain is trained to find flaws. Reading critically — very critically, some would say! — is a different experience than reading for pleasure.
The last time I got lost in a book was in April, when I was on vacation in Mexico. I devoured half a dozen novels in two weeks.
Nonfiction is harder, because it more closely resembles my work. Around the time he started as a consulting editor at Seven Days, veteran journalist Ken Ellingwood published a book called First to Fall: Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery. He gifted me a copy.
I tucked into it at the end of last year, over the holiday break we take between Christmas and New Year's. Eagerly, I learned about the New England abolitionist who bravely and tragically published a newspaper before the Civil War in a pro-slavery part of what is now the Midwest.
As much as I enjoyed the book, I found myself taking notes as if I were editing it.
The Seven Days Reading Issue, which coincides with the darkest days of the year, is perfectly timed for me, too; after sending it to the printer, we take an aforementioned annual week off, the only time of the year when we aren't putting together a newspaper. To do it, we pull double duty, assembling two issues at once. Look for our special two-week edition on December 27.
This week's paper includes a remembrance of Vermont poet Louise Glück, who died in October; a feature about a new book of essays by local Somali writers; a profile of Charlotte author Stephen Kiernan; and a short story by Ferrisburgh essayist and professional wanderer Leath Tonino.
I'm not traveling over the break, which should give me time to attack the stack of books on the chair next to my bed. Since April, it's grown taller. Embarrassingly, it includes some titles by friends: Journalist Joe Sexton gave me a signed copy of The Lost Sons of Omaha almost a year ago. I started reading Upstairs Delicatessen, by New York Times book critic Dwight Garner, but got interrupted. I enjoyed Kiernan's Universe of Two but haven't cracked his latest, The Glass Château.
Also on the pile: Seven Days associate editor Margot Harrison's new novel, Only She Came Back; Mr. B, Jennifer Homans' acclaimed biography of George Balanchine; The Least of Us, by Sam Quinones; and Marty Baron's new book, Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post.
All I want for Christmas is a comfortable, well-lit spot on the couch.