I hope this feeling is not peculiar to me.
Every book-lover who reads a lot of books in a year, glides into at least one phenomenal book that envelops their thoughts, making the event of reading the next book a cumbersome one.
This is a feeling that overcomes me every time I read an Umberto Eco book. Nassim Nicholas Taleb does the same, too.
Recently, Spanish author Jorge Carrion’s savoury bibliographic trip Bookshops induced the same feeling. I now blame myself, for it may have impacted my review of Cashvertising – the next book that I read after Bookshops.
I am no brain scientiest. But I think this ‘feeling’ heightens if you happen to read a plain-vanilla work after having swooned through an unputdownable work of art.
It’s like yawning through a Jason Statham starrer after watching a subliminal Christopher Nolan movie.
A rather exaggerated equivalent will be – one moment you are taking in the views of Mt Titlis and the next moment you are slipping into a nightmarish descent into an abyss of ennui.
How do you get over this post-unputdownable-book depression?
Actually, I found out early on that there is no remedy to this situation but to keep reading.
Chasing that next great book is like chasing a Himalayan quail in an urban setting. A futile pursuit.
Years ago, my stars aligned and I read three phenomenal books back to back – The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, Leading the Revolution by Gary Hamel and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Late Stephen Covey.
Three different books from three different subject matter experts and all three turned out to be astonishing reads.
See, reading two Amazon 5-Starrers back to back does not mean that you are going to like them both. I always say, books are like movies – they mean different things to different people.
Once you have enjoyed a great book, put it back on your shelf. Recommend it. Talk about it. But keep reading and one day – out of sheer serendepity, another great book will appear when you least expect it!
I have not had that kind of luck, of late.
I finished Bookshops in October but I find it hard to fight the urge to read some of the highlighted text and scribbling in the margins. It kind of ruins the stage for the book to be read.
So this is another aspect of an unputdownable book. Its lingering effects. You always feel like going back to the bookshelf for that particular book.
Let me know in the comments box below about the unputdownable books you have read and that have induced such a feeling in you and how you overcame it.
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