A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock
I’ll admit, I’d considered the scenario in the past. You wake up one day to find that the world has gone on pause, a full timeout’s been called, all work deadlines, professional obligations and social engagements on hiatus indefinitely. Just think of all the reading you could get done. That book that’s been languishing on the nightstand for nearly a year? Finished it. The nineteenth-century classic I’d been affecting knowledge of all these years? Gobbled it up. The cinder block-thick tome of maximalist postmodernism? Yeah, I read that too.
Thinking back on this terrible year, I’m ashamed how close my experience hewed to that fanciful setup, at least for a time. Because the truth is I responded, initially, to the shock and horror of a full-scale pandemic by retreating into books. They’ve been reliable companions before, in times of crisis and of clarity. And so I heeded the dire warnings from all corners to “stay the f—- home!” The evidence is now in: not even a pandemic can make a cook or a gardener out of
