Preface: In the title of this article, I have created two words: 'edifiable' (which is not used) and 'edifiably' (a word that could only exist if 'edifiable' were a preexisting word). I had to create these words in order to get across my article's point of education for three reasons, the most important of which is that I wanted to find a singular word to describe a direct object that is able to be taught with intellectualism. (Did a word for such a thing preexist?) However, I am using this new word in the spelling of 'edify-ably' to demonstrate that my diatribe is something that - in addition to using an adverb to describe an object or subject that is efidiable (or, able to be taught with intellectualism) - can edify (teach) the reader ably (skillfully). To use the word 'bookish' immediately after this word serves to highlight that this discovery that I will be writing to you about is both astute, nerdy and (here's where the 'ish' comes in) pertaining to books. Did you love how confusing that was? Enjoy.

This article that I am about to write goes against the boundaries I laid down in the first post of this blog (the promise that I will not let this become a bitching diary), but as they're my rules to break, allow me to vituperative for a moment as the ownership of a blog so suggests I am capable of doing:

I am a reader, but more than that, I am a slow reader.

I'm discovering that the reason for that is has been (without my conscious knowledge) much more simple than I anticipated for some time, and maybe even all time, and that reason is that - unless I am stuck on a plane or reading Harry Potter - I find that I only read books one chapter at a time.

I do it with seemingly everything. I did it recently with Watchmen (which is a graphic novel, which means I probably could have read all twelve chapters in under two hours, but I didn’t), I do it with novels, and I do it with just about everything. So in looking for a reason for this bizarre phenomena, I have found myriad implausible reasons and one completely plausible reason. That plausible reason is that I generally prefer non-fiction to fiction books.

Now, this may seem both hypocritical and somewhat detrimental considering that I spent four years attaining my bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, but it's simply how I operate. In fact, I think it's how I always have. There's this funny thing I've noticed over the years: each time that I read a Harry Potter novel, I feel so energized by the reading that I want to finish another fiction book... but I never do. In fact, I can go from six months to one year without reading fiction after a Harry Potter book. This phenomena has existed in me since 2001 when I read the first three novels in the series in a row. After those six-hundred or so pages, nothing else ficticious seemed readable. (Though I felt like I could have started a great, new habit of reading stories, I couldn't.) I see now where my missteps lie. It's not J.K. Rowling's fault. It's not that she is such a great writer than no other author's words illuminate their pages like her do. It's that - after such an immersing story - I don't want to read another freaking story. I'd much rather pick up a work of non-fiction and actually learn something instead... and this is a habit I did not pick up until 2005 after I read The Order of the Phoenix.

It's also a habit that I did not recognize until three years later, natch, because I am can be an idiot sometimes.

Of the last eight books I've read this summer, seven have been non-fiction works. Furthermore, of the 19 books I have on my 'to read' shelf (each shelf has its proper designation in Library Village), eleven are non-fiction works... and they will most likely be the ones picked first to read next, as five of those eight fiction works have resided on this shelf for what has been (not really) ages.

So why read non-fiction works one chapter at a time, you might ask. The answer, to me, is simple: absorption. I'm reading non-fiction works for the knowledge, trivia and background these books have to divulge. Part of my great fear with reading (is anyone else so paranoid as to have a fear with reading?) is that I'll forget something I've learned in a book if I don't read it carefully enough. Books like Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries contain facts and insights that, I feel, it is my duty as an intelligent person to know back and forth. And yet, there is always the faint chance that I might lose all of this worthwhile information if I read too many chapters at once.

Have you ever listened to four new bands in one day, back to back, and then tried to recall the details you liked or found striking from each act's album? Whenever this happens, the details become fuzzy. (This is the brilliance behind concert festivals; no matter how many festivals you go to in a summer, the memories of each trip will inevitably blend into one another, and you will be left with the desire to attend another one as quickly as possible... perhaps in order to retain some type of self-identity from your experience which, surely, will never coalesce.) You no doubt surely feel some similar mental-processing errors when you read too much of a non-fiction work or college textbook at once; the facts begin to blur, and your sense of each pages' identity becomes false. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it just means that you'll have to re-read or read more new chapters to keep up with your reading losses.

That's something I cannot and will not do. I simply must read books one chapter a time, and usually before bed. (Some research has purported that this is when you are most likely to retain new information. I am part-skeptical.) By digesting this type of information one chapter at a time, I can absorb one topic at a time as well; most non-fiction books (or at least the kind that I read) have sparse lineage amongst the chapters, as if each new chapter were a separate idea or article.

It works better this way, for me. This way, I can become a mini-auteur of a singular idea - one night at a time. And that could be useful if I ever have a conversation with a real person.