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There's a bond you have with someone when you've read the same book. Sometimes, when I'm on the train and I see someone reading a book I've read and I want to run up and talk to the person about it. I never do, but I want to because I automatically feel a kinship to that person, and in a way I feel superior because I've already read the book. Part of me wants to flex my knowledge, I can admit that. It's an ego thing. I want to ask them questions they couldn't possibly know the answer to because I've finished the book, and this person is still reading it. In the back of my mind I'm singing I-know-something-you-don't-know, but all the same, I feel like there's a bond between us - even if the other person isn't aware of it.
Over the winter I went to a reading at The Book Cellar on Lincoln. I was itching to get out of the house, even if just for a few hours. There's something about the winter, it's a good time to catch up on your reading but at the same time you feel like your grounded and more than anything you want to get out.
On this night at The Book Cellar, it was obvious that I wasn't the only one having the urge. The windows were fogged over with bad breath and wet with condensation, and from the sidewalk all you could see were the colored blurs of puffed winter coats. When I got inside I was amazed at the crowd and how tightly packed people were, assholes to elbows up and down the stacks. The moment I walked in I decided that I wasn't going to stay, but no sooner did the door close behind me that it opened again and more people filed in, pushing me to the point of no return.
After a minute or two I spotted someone I knew. I didn't spot him so much as we were shoved into one another, and he said the most interesting thing to me. He didn't say "how are you" or "what have you been up to," or any of the normal things you say to someone you know who has just been shoved against you in a crowded room. He said: "So, what are you reading?"
It was a real question. An honest, real question, and one I had to think about before answering. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was reading, I had simply never been asked that before so I was unprepared, and with no stock answer to fall back on I simply didn't know what to say.
It's August now, and I still think about that question.
I had decided that I was going to start asking people the same question. Rather than "what are you up to," I'd say "what are you reading?" But what I realized was that most people aren't reading anything. How many people are always reading something? I am, I know that. And I know a few other people who would be able to answer my question, but for the most part I don't know many people who read for enjoyment.
It became painfully apparent when I started working on The Reading List in the spring. People would ask me what I'm up to, and when I would tell them it would take less than fifteen seconds for the glaze to start filming over their eyes. Narrow focus became a 1,000 yard stare at nothing and I could feel myself become translucent. Dull around the edges. Two dimensional.
Chicago is home to the PRINTERS ROW BOOK FAIR - one of the largest book fairs in the country, right? But the thing is, Chicago media doesn't cover books, or literary events, any other time but that one weekend. Why is that?
Is Chicago a literary city?
There's a core indie lit scene - it's more of a bunch of clicks, really - but is Chicago actually a literary city? Are people readers?
I propose this: Why not have a book club? Not one where a bunch of people sit around and talk about a book that everyone is supposed to be reading. Something more social. Everyone can read a pre selected book and then there's a party for that book and the people who have read it. At the party you can meet the author, get your book signed, and if you want to talk about the book there's a room full of people who will have the exact same answer as you when asked the question: "what are you reading?"
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