Nicholson Baker’s longform essay “Lumber” is about the joy of one man doing the work of discovery and learning, and the fact that it comes from a time before the lazy chaos of the internet might be the most enjoyable thing about it.
Of all the reasons to read a novel, plot tends to be the most compelling. Yet atmosphere, ideas, humor, the construction of a well-turned-out sentence–all these are also incentives to keep turning pages.
I write New Year’s resolutions every year, though I really ought to know better. Run every day, floss regularly, stop eating donuts: it’s the stuff of fantasy. In 2014 I spared myself the usual set-ups for failure in favor of a more exotic set-up for failure: I resolved to read one hundred books. It was…
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