English philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon, is known to have coined the phrase: “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” I’m of the impression that he was speaking more to the philosophic/scientific side of reading—in that some books are valuable for scanning and sifting through to find your answers; others are valuable to read merely for the sake of having read them, while only a few rarities are deserving of a reader’s full and undivided attention.
As an avid reader of fiction, I always saw this phrase in a different light. For books that were tasted, I imagined genres that weren’t generally my style, but seemed interesting enough to cause me to stray to them. Books like The Silence of the Lambs or The Fault in Our Stars would fit into this category: storylines and concepts that are so far from my comfortable realm of fantasy, yet easily found themselves a forever home on my bookshelves.
Books that were chewed and digested, for me, were the books like Little Women—stories that weren’t exactly impossible to put down, and might have even moved quite slowly in the long run. But they nonetheless held my attention and ultimately held my heart, mainly due to their deeper meanings and the inspirational growth of the characters within.
But there are two types of books that I “devour.” There are those that are naturally read at a quick pace—stories that contain enough intrigue and/or gripping situations to keep you rapidly turning the pages for more. These are the types that I typically breeze through in two or three sittings. Or, in cases like Catching Fire, practically one. (I only stopped because I figured I should probably eat food at some point.)
Then there are those that I involuntarily devour. These are the books that keep me so enraptured by the settings and the characters that I get lost within the worlds of them, and in the blink of an eye, one hundred pages have slipped past me… and I mourn.
These are the stories that stay with me the most.
What makes them so special isn’t that they’re quick reads: what’s special is that I don’t want to finish them. In fact, I’m almost afraid to finish them, because once I do it means I’ll have to wake from the dream. At one point or another, I will have to emerge from the page, blinking in the harsh light of the real world, and close the book and slip it back into its place on the shelf. And afterward I’ll be in a funk the rest of the day, moping around the house as if someone had died.
I’m thinking about this now because I am currently reading such a book. It’s the kind of story that I love to get lost in, first and foremost offering me a setting I could explore all day: at once peaceful and lovely, but with just a hint of darkness and danger creeping up along the edge of it. And the main character reminds me constantly of who I yearn to be, and is surrounded by characters I yearn to meet, or else yearn to run away from. Put together, the author has undoubtedly caught me up in a world I want to stay in.
I’m about thirty pages from the end now, and it is only because I’ve forced myself to hold off that I haven’t devoured it already. It’s both a gift and a curse: to feel so much joy at having found this story and knowing it exists, and so much pain at knowing it must end, knowing I cannot linger within that world for just a little longer beyond the final page.
But then again, this must be a curse that every avid reader shares: to long so hard for places and people that seem just out of reach.
— C.M.
Night Owls, what are some books you’ve “tasted,” “devoured,” or “digested thoroughly?” And what stories have you refused to finish, just to stay in that world a little longer?
