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0:59

Wireless. reading

2:00

anxiety, like people being embarrassed by what they

2:02

read or worried they don't read enough or

2:04

that they aren't well enough read. They read

2:06

the wrong way. They read the wrong books,

2:09

et cetera, et cetera, and so forth. And

2:12

such an important part of the creative process

2:14

for almost everyone I know, regardless of discipline,

2:16

is reading. So I

2:18

was thinking, what can I do to help

2:20

about this? And then I remembered that Elisa

2:23

Gabbard, one of the great essayists, has a

2:25

wonderful collection out, just came out, called Any

2:27

Person Is The Only Self. And

2:30

quite a bit of it is about reading

2:32

in all of its various forms. So I

2:34

thought maybe we could talk to her and

2:36

get her to help us. What do you

2:38

think? I think that's a great idea. I

2:41

want to read more, so I hope that we're

2:43

going to cover that as well. I've been trying

2:45

to read more, so I would love to hear

2:47

insight from anyone telling me how I

2:50

can do a better job at that. At one point, I loved reading. I

2:52

used to eat my personal pan pizza like everyone else did in the 90s.

2:55

But now I'm an adult, and there's no incentive

2:57

to do it anymore. So help me, Elisa,

3:00

please. Amazing. Well, I'm glad

3:02

maybe we can get help for you, for

3:04

me, our listeners, by talking to Elisa Gabbard.

3:07

Elisa, welcome to Working Overtime. Thank you.

3:09

Thank you so much for having me.

3:12

So let me just start by asking, what

3:14

drew you to writing so much about reading?

3:16

I mean, that's not what all your essays

3:18

are about, right? But there's something going on

3:20

right now that made you think about that

3:22

as a subject matter. What was

3:24

it that drove you to that topic? You

3:26

know, maybe it's just my life stage. Getting

3:29

older, I don't have that many

3:31

adventures left. It

3:33

feels often like reading is the most interesting

3:36

thing I do. I know that's sad, but

3:38

it's almost like it's my form of travel.

3:40

It's how I get to experience what

3:43

lives that are not my own life feel like

3:45

and look like. And

3:47

yeah, apart from the 40 hours

3:49

a week that I spend at my desk job, like

3:51

I feel like most of what I do is read.

3:54

And so yeah, that just ends up being what I

3:56

think about and what I think about ends up being

3:58

what I write about. Hey,

8:01

listeners, do you have any tips

8:03

or questions about the creative process? Get

8:05

in touch and share your advice. You

8:07

can email us at working at slate.com

8:09

or even better, you can call us

8:11

and leave us a message at 304-933-9675.

8:18

That's 304-933-work. And

8:22

we're back. Alisa, your book

8:24

really demonstrates a capacious mind,

8:26

I think. We write about

8:29

everything from surfing, bank robbery,

8:31

thriller, point break to Rilke.

8:34

We live in the twilight of the

8:36

separation of high and low art, but

8:38

that separation is still kind of out

8:41

there. So I'm wondering, how do you

8:43

feel about that divide, particularly when it

8:45

comes to reading? Are you thinking like,

8:48

oh, is this elevated enough

8:50

for acclaimed poet and critic Alisa Gabbard

8:52

to be reading? Well,

8:55

you know, I think I do

8:57

put perhaps more pressure on myself than

8:59

the average person does to spend like

9:01

most of my free time doing

9:03

language stuff, either reading or writing. I

9:06

make very deliberate choices. I know people hate

9:08

to make choices in life, but I often

9:10

will give up something that I know would

9:12

be kind of fun and entertaining because

9:15

in the end, I think I'll be happier and

9:18

more fulfilled in my life if I spend that

9:20

time reading or writing. So

9:22

I make those choices a lot. You

9:24

know, I'm always trying to read things that I feel like

9:26

the people I know love. People

9:29

told me I should read Zaybald for years before I

9:31

finally read them. I'm so glad I did. It changed

9:33

my life. But, you know, I

9:35

also sometimes I'm like, I just want to

9:37

watch a surf movie. And so sometimes I

9:39

will carve out a little writing project that

9:41

allows me to engage

9:44

with very low sloppy culture

9:47

and make it feel like it's an intellectual

9:49

engagement. And so there's one essay in my

9:51

book, as you know, about Point Break. There's

9:53

another one about hair metal. And

9:55

that was just a great excuse to watch every hair

9:58

metal documentary I could get my hands on. for

10:00

a month or two and call it

10:02

writing. It's research, Mom, it's research. One

10:06

thing I love in the book is

10:09

the moment where you kind of give

10:11

up on your own willpower and choice

10:13

and you embrace the books that are

10:15

on the recently returned shelf of

10:18

your local library, right? It's like the wisdom

10:20

of crowds is making your book choices. Can

10:22

you tell us a little bit about that,

10:24

about choosing to do that and what you

10:26

learned from it? Yeah, I mean the first

10:28

time I realized that shelf existed, it was

10:31

when I moved to Denver, this was over

10:33

10 years ago, got my public

10:35

library card, I'm a big library person because

10:37

our house is already full of books and

10:40

I can't buy every book that I wanna read.

10:43

And this library had a feature that I had never

10:45

seen before which was a recently returned shelf. And I

10:48

was like, oh my God, this is brilliant because if

10:50

I only have 10 minutes to spend in the library

10:52

and I don't really know what I wanna read, I

10:54

can just pick something up here that looks exciting. And

10:57

it felt like this sort of

11:00

anti-algorithm, anti-curation

11:03

life hack where it simplified my choices

11:05

but it's not what everybody else on

11:07

social media is talking about right now.

11:10

It's not the thing that just got made into a

11:12

TV show. So somehow it's like

11:14

somebody was choosing the book for me but also

11:16

like not telling me how to feel about it

11:18

in any way. And that's something that I personally

11:21

love. So most writers read

11:23

a lot and that feels very obvious

11:25

but lots of people want to read

11:27

more than they actually do. I'm one

11:29

of them, as I already stated. What

11:32

advice do you have for people like me who wanna

11:34

make reading more of their life? I

11:36

think just always have a book

11:38

or a stack of books around. That

11:41

has been one of the

11:43

biggest changes for me. Like when I started

11:45

using a library a lot, I always would

11:47

have books around that looked appealing and felt

11:49

exciting. Sometimes those books are

11:51

like more exciting than the books you've already

11:54

purchased on your own shelf. But

11:56

I just try to always be reading at

11:59

least one book. Usually I'm reading. a few

12:01

books at the same time, like a novel

12:03

and then maybe something nonfiction, some poetry. But

12:07

it's the idea that like I

12:09

have to check in with my book, if

12:12

not every day, almost every day, but ideally every

12:14

day. And even if I only read a little

12:16

bit every day, like in the morning before work

12:18

or at night after dinner, and I'm

12:21

a slow reader, it still adds up. So

12:23

even if I'm only reading, you know, 30 pages

12:26

a day tops, like you read a book

12:28

a week that way often. So I just

12:31

think it doesn't have to feel like this

12:33

big mountain you have to climb. It's just a

12:35

little bit. It's just a little like self care time

12:37

you're spending with yourself. I'm not gonna lie,

12:40

when you said 30 pages a day, I wanted to be like, that's a

12:42

little bit. That's 30 pages. How

12:44

big, how big are these words we're talking about? I guess it depends

12:46

on the size of the print. Exactly.

12:49

So of course, one tried and true method for

12:51

reading more is a book club. You

12:54

formed the Stupid Classics book

12:56

club. Tell me what

12:58

is a Stupid Classic and what is it

13:00

like reading them? So the

13:02

idea behind this book club was I was talking

13:04

with a group of friends at a party and

13:07

we were sort of lamenting that none

13:09

of us were English majors. And

13:12

there were a lot of books that we really should have already

13:14

read. You know, this is when we are in our 30s.

13:18

And we just hadn't gotten to them either in

13:20

high school or in college and the years had

13:22

gone by. And maybe we had started to feel

13:24

like it was quote unquote too late for that

13:26

book. But we also really wanted to know like,

13:28

what is it actually like to read that book?

13:31

And so we made this long list. We like

13:33

sat down, sequestered ourselves at this party with a

13:35

notebook and made a list of all these books

13:37

that we decided were Stupid Classics. So

13:40

the idea was that couldn't be like too long or

13:42

challenging. It's not Moby Dick. This is

13:44

not Middlemarch. This is like Strange

13:46

Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yes.

13:50

And that was one of the first books we read

13:52

and it blew my mind. I loved it so much.

13:54

That book is a banger that I

13:56

read because of that essay and love.

14:00

It's so good. It's so much like more interesting

14:02

and complex than you think it's gonna be. Another

14:04

one of the first books we read was Fahrenheit

14:06

451, which I

14:08

hadn't read any Ray Bradbury in many, many

14:10

years, but I remember really liking it as

14:12

a kid. Like some of his short stories

14:14

have really stuck with me actually. There's

14:16

this one called The Velt that I think about quite often.

14:19

But yeah, Fahrenheit 451, like

14:21

none of us could believe how stupid it was.

14:23

So it was like so pandering

14:26

and it was really racist and sexist, which

14:28

I think some people probably think what all

14:30

classics are, right? No, not the case. Some

14:32

of them turned out to be pretty

14:36

incredibly progressive in their thinking, especially

14:38

for their time. But this

14:40

was pretty embarrassing. Yeah, it was actually really

14:42

hard to finish. It was just very badly

14:44

written. And that was a disappointment,

14:46

but enlightening and I'm still glad I read

14:49

it. I'm glad that I know that about

14:51

that book. One thing

14:53

about the classics is that it's almost like

14:55

two books operating at the same time. It's

14:57

like the image of the book that's formed

15:00

via decades or centuries of discourse, right? Fahrenheit

15:02

451, the great novel about

15:05

the freedom of the human spirit and the

15:07

most blah, blah, blah of circumstances or

15:10

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, dumb horror story.

15:12

For me, I was really shocked when I

15:15

read Pride and Prejudice and learned how mean

15:17

it is. It is so fucking mean. Like

15:19

part of why it's so funny is

15:21

that it's so deliciously mean. How

15:25

much does the reputation of a book

15:27

shape your reading experience? When you're reading

15:29

for pleasure, are you also reading about

15:31

the books you read to find out

15:33

sort of what other people are saying

15:36

about them? Yeah, I usually

15:38

don't go out on my way to try to learn

15:40

about a book before I read it. But sometimes as

15:42

you say, books are so famous, so well known, so

15:44

talked about. You can't help but have this idea of

15:46

what it's gonna be like. And

15:49

that makes the reading actually

15:52

very rich and very interesting because

15:54

you realize like, oh, all of

15:56

my assumptions were wrong. And

15:59

so, because

22:00

I hate the book, I punish myself by

22:02

saying, well, if I don't finish this book, I can't read it

22:04

in my other books. But it's only

22:07

been recently that I discovered that you could

22:09

bail on a book. So let

22:11

me just ask you, how far do

22:13

you get into a book before you bail, and

22:15

what does a book have to do to keep

22:17

your interest? Ooh, yeah. I

22:20

have a very intricate system, which

22:23

is like, you know, it's way buried deep

22:25

back in my mind. So I'm not sure that I could

22:27

fully spell it out. But I feel like the less I

22:30

know about the book, the

22:32

more likely I am to abandon it.

22:34

So if I know nothing about it,

22:36

pick it up, use bookstore, library, read

22:38

the first sentence, and I hate the

22:40

first sentence, that's it. Like, you did

22:42

something inept on page one. I'm not

22:44

gonna like this book, you know? Like,

22:48

I am very fast and furious with that

22:50

kind of thing. But if it's something like,

22:52

that's been recommended to me many times by

22:54

dear friends, people who know me, especially for

22:56

years and years, or it's, you know, it's

22:58

a timeless classic, then I'm gonna

23:00

be a lot stricter with myself. And if I

23:02

feel like I don't really like it, even after

23:05

20, 30 pages, I might keep going, especially

23:09

if I have some really good reason for

23:11

it. Like, I've already told people I'm reading

23:13

it, and so I've kind of increased my

23:16

commitment and investment, and I feel accountable. But

23:19

a lot of times, I just, I kind of

23:21

give myself the grace. If it does get to

23:23

that point where I'm like, avoiding the act of

23:26

reading, because I don't wanna read what I'm currently

23:28

reading. And, you know, in some cases, it's even

23:30

worse. It's like, I'm imagining faking my own death

23:33

to get out of reading this book. Then

23:36

I give myself an out, and I'm like, I

23:38

don't have to read this right now. Like, maybe

23:40

it's just not the right time. I'm not in

23:43

the mood. And it has happened before that I've

23:45

started books, really wasn't into them. And then five

23:47

years later, I was so into

23:49

them. It was like, so the right time for me

23:51

in that book. That book was ready for me, and

23:53

I was ready for it. So that's

23:56

like the simplified version of the system. But

23:58

I think, yeah, you have to. to kind

24:00

of pay attention to your internal signals and,

24:02

yeah, a band and chip when it's time.

24:05

You know, one thing that I've noticed a lot

24:07

recently is how much shame people express about whatever

24:09

it is that they're reading. I'll give you an

24:11

example. I was at one of my kids' Little

24:13

League games, and the mother behind me, she

24:16

had a great hack. She was reading a book on her phone

24:18

during the game so that her kid didn't know she was reading

24:20

a book instead of watching the game or whatever. And I was

24:22

like, oh, hey, what are you reading? I'm always interested in what

24:24

people are reading. I'm always looking at what they're reading on the

24:27

subway or whatever. And she just immediately

24:29

retreated into herself. Right? And I just went,

24:31

I just said, I said, this is, I

24:33

was like, is it a Sarah Moss

24:35

book? And she was like, it is a Sarah Moss book.

24:37

I was like, you don't need to be ashamed about that.

24:39

Everyone reads Sarah Moss. It's OK. You know, we had a good

24:41

laugh about it, and then we just talked about reading the rest

24:44

of the time, you know? But to

24:47

me, it's like, that's a real thing. You know,

24:49

oh, this is too trashy. It's too light. It's

24:51

too, it's not smart enough or whatever. I'm

24:54

just wondering what your relationship

24:56

is to the kind of

24:58

dynamics of shame that surround

25:00

reading. I think

25:02

a little shame and guilt can

25:04

be very useful, because there's two

25:07

kinds of happiness. I

25:09

sort of alluded to this earlier, but this is just

25:11

a guiding principle of my life. There's

25:14

like, in the moment, I'm not bored.

25:16

I'm entertained. But then a

25:18

week later, are you still thinking about that

25:20

thing that kept you entertained? A month, a

25:22

year, 10 years. For

25:26

me, of course, there's going to

25:28

be some stuff that is just dumb entertainment that I

25:30

never think about again. But I

25:32

feel like my life is richer and happier

25:34

overall if some of the ways

25:36

that I'm spending my time, stick with me. And

25:39

so that sometimes means

25:41

choosing slightly less entertaining, more

25:44

quote unquote difficult books, but

25:46

because they're more rewarding and

25:48

they contain ideas or concepts

25:51

that I still think about

25:54

years later. And so if I

25:57

read a couple of books that feel kind of cheap, like I

25:59

just. flipped through them, never

26:01

stopped to think, never wrote anything

26:03

down or underlined anything. That

26:06

to me is unsatisfying. It's like

26:08

eating candy for every meal or

26:10

something. So it's not so much

26:13

that I'm trying to prove anything

26:15

to anyone. It's just

26:17

like I feel better, much like I

26:19

feel better if I eat some vegetables

26:21

every day. I feel better if I'm

26:23

reading stuff that seems

26:26

to make me smarter, even if

26:28

that's an illusion. But

26:30

obviously, I think people should have their own

26:32

systems for what makes them happy and read

26:34

the books that make them happy. And it

26:36

just might not be the same books for

26:38

me as it is for somebody else. Well,

26:42

that is all the time we have for

26:44

this week's episode of Working Over Time. And

26:47

yes, this is the time when I tell

26:49

you, you should really subscribe to Slate Plus.

26:51

Go to slate.com/working plus. You'll get bonus segments

26:53

on shows like working. You'll get bonus full

26:55

episodes of shows like Slow Burn and

26:58

Decodering. And you'll also support everything we

27:00

do right here on Working. Once again,

27:02

go to slate.com/working plus to sign up

27:05

today. Thank you so much

27:07

for being with us, Alisa Gavurt. Thank you.

27:09

That was so fun. Our series producer is

27:11

Cameron Drews. Working Over Time is produced by

27:13

Kevin Bendis. We'll catch you on Sunday for

27:15

a new episode of Working. And we'll be

27:18

back in two weeks with another Working Over

27:20

Time. Until then, get back to work. PHOENIX

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