Reading in Parallels
I’ve always had the habit of reading multiple books at once. As a kid, I didn’t think too much about it. Now I see it as a form of cross-pollination.
Right now, I’m bouncing between Infinite Jest, Comedy Samurai by Larry Charles (on audiobook), and I just finished Ebby, the biography of the man who brought Bill W. to AA. On paper, they couldn’t be more different: fiction, comedy, recovery. But together, they form a constellation.
Each one illuminates something in the others. David Foster Wallace dissecting addiction to entertainment. Larry Charles chasing meaning through absurdity. Ebby showing how brokenness becomes transmission.
I used to think reading this way meant I couldn’t focus. Now I think it’s how my brain makes sense of the world. The overlaps are the point.