The minutes after turning the last page of a novel should be a time for contemplation and absorption, a time to let the words settle. But if you're a greedy reader as I am, there's a tendency to immediately start thinking about what to read next. There's something ever so slightly unsteadying about being between books – and the balance needs to be swiftly restored.
While it would no doubt be sensible at this juncture to turn to the pile of books in the corner that are patiently waiting to be read (mine is sizeable and currently doing double duty as a bedside table), this pile tends to get overlooked because invariably during the course of my reading I will have alighted upon something that demands, in a manner too forceful to ignore, to be followed up; a hole that needs to be filled. These small sparks could arise via the mentioning of an author whose work I've yet to encounter or through the description of a place or period that I realise I know shamefully little about. Either way, before I've even finished my current book it has become quite, quite vital that I try and read more on a particular theme or idea and then, having been inspired to go in a certain direction by one book, the next book creates an entirely different fire of its own and another path of inquiry beckons. The pile, meanwhile, remains untouched.
As a result, I tend to read in thematic chains rather than, say, working my way through the works of one particular author. So Beryl Bainbridge's According to Queeney led to a journey through the 18th century, taking in some Tobias Smollett, biographies of the surgeon John Hunter Wendy Moore's fascinating The Knife Man and Captain Cook, before ending in a curious – and ultimately very satisfying – dip into Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels. Before that there was a spurt of Bloomsbury-related reading, and before that there was a bit of Aldous Huxley/Sybille Bedford back and forth.
While there's something liberating in letting one's reading be steered by the books themselves, in being carried into unexpected places, sometimes I wish I was more systematic in my reading habits if only for the sake of the pile. What I'm interested in knowing is what sparks people in their choice of reading material; how do you decide what next, where now? Is it obligation, inspiration or some other more particular and personal system?
