Sunday Salon: Serendipitous Reading

I have some elaborate ways to choose my next read, from review schedules to the dates I bought the books to book club deadlines. But I rarely just allow the reading vagaries to take me where they will. Even when I come across a reference to a book or an author and think, oh, I should read that now, I generally don't. Instead, I let my system retake me, reading on a schedule. And because of this, I sometimes forget how lovely it can be just to follow trail after trail with no clear sense of where you'll end up. But sometimes I do manage to break free and just hop from one book to another, like right now, and I discover again the pleasure of serendipitous reading.

On New Year's Eve, we went to a party, well, several parties but one in particular where I hadn't seen many of the people in quite a long time. Since everyone knows I read, that seemed to be the topic of choice for conversations with me. Not that I'm complaining; I am always happy to talk about books, probably for far longer than the average person cares to discuss them. In any case, it turned out that many of the women had all recently read Cheryl Strayed's Wild and then gone to see the movie together. I have had the book sitting on my shelf unread since it was in hardback and couldn't really contribute anything to any conversations about it or the book versus the movie. So I resolved to go home and pull it off the shelf, especially if other friends of mine are interested in seeing the movie at some point. I read it and it led me to the next book I opened: Margaret Drabble's The Summer-Bird Cage, another book I had sitting on my shelf unread for years, literally years. The path from one to the other? Strayed reads Drabble's novel (among others, all the rest of whom I had already read) while hiking.

And as a sort of universe reward sort of thing, when I opened the Drabble, I found an old (quite probably thirty or so years old) post card marking its pages. I had bought the book long ago at a used bookstore so I knew neither the sender nor the recipient of the post card but it was delightful all the same. There was nothing much of consequence on the card but I have always had a bit of a fascination with others' letters and I am enjoying using this one as a bookmark very much. I haven't finished the Drabble yet so I don't know where it might send me reading next and whether it will be the book that inspires the next thing I pick up or whether the inspiration will be the post card. Or maybe I'll hear or read about something else that directs me instead. I will, of course, have to hew to my schedule at some point but I hope to remember the joy of just sitting back and letting the current take me where it will as well.

Do you ever read this way, meandering from book to book as things present themselves? My reading this past week has taken me all over the place. I took a look at the way we determine and classify mental illness in animals. I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail while facing my life and who I want to be. I was kidnapped in Haiti because of my economic class. I met up with the daughters of a group of women about whom I had previously read. And I am in England with the acerbic and yet funny younger sister whose older sister has just gotten married. Where have your reading travels taken you this past week?