What Jennifer Garner Taught Me About Reading
Years ago, I read an article in O, The Oprah Magazine with advice that I’ve always kept close. In the piece, actor Jennifer Garner listed her recommended books and offered insight into her own story as a reader. But she gave one sparkling nugget of advice in particular that stopped me cold.
Garner recounted her experience as a young actor, navigating waves of unemployment between jobs. Instead of losing hope during these quiet periods, Garner recalled that she and her roommate looked at their flexible schedule as an opportunity. She noted, “My friend and I were unemployed for chunks of time, and we’d tell each other: ‘Instead of panicking, go read. You won’t have another chance in your whole life to dive into books.’”
(As an aside, Garner recommended the book Possession by A.S. Byatt - with its dual timelines and long, wandering sentence structure - as an excellent example of a book perfectly designed to fill an empty hour.)
I don’t remember what exactly was happening in my life when I read this advice, but I do remember feeling stuck. I remember feeling guilty whenever I was unproductive. I remember twitching with agitation whenever I tried to rest.
As an American, I’ve spent my life steeped in a culture that prizes busyness, ambition, and the outward accomplishments that herald success. (I may not rest well, but few of us do.) We’re raised to pursue happiness, but perhaps we focus on its pursuit most of all.
Too often, we forget that introspection is not idleness. When farmers rotate crops, they leave one field fallow - not because that land is wasteful but because its peak productivity will follow a season of rest.
In this vein, June always arrives as a welcome, restful reprieve for me. After May’s heady bustle of events and activities, June, with its long days and golden evenings, offers ample opportunities to exhale. Yet June’s hours aren’t barren; they’re rich with possibility.
In Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery, Anne Shirley says, “I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.” After Marilla tells her she would eventually grow tired of it, Anne agrees “but just now I feel it would take a long time to get tired of it, if it were all as charming as today. Everything loves June.”
June conjures the gilded mirage of “extra” time. And with that extra time - for me at least - comes the initial impulse to make plans. To get more done. To mold these minutes like clay, and - by my own efforts - make them matter. I have a tendency to get ahead of my own anxiety this way. You don’t have to be an actor to recognize the fear and panic that arises with an aimless hour. Our lexicon refers to time the same way we do money. That relationship that didn’t work out? Years you’ll never get back. The long route home? A waste of time. That long lunch with a friend? A stolen hour. We’re raised to be vigilant about not squandering what’s ours.
But being productive isn’t the same as being present.
Garner’s excellent advice: let’s capitalize on unexpected time with a book that demands our attention. Her advice works for music, too. (Listen to the entire album, rather than that one trending song.) And for cooking. (Make a bolognese that burbles for hours for no other reason than you crave the taste of it over pappardelle.)
I also try to remember this advice as a parent. Because an extra hour can mean saying “yes” to baking the cookies or hosting the friends or building a spaceship from a cardboard box. I will never remember my spring cleaning exploits, but those memories spent baking banana bread with my children? I’ll never let those treasured hours go.
But back to books. In the interest of helping you fill those June hours, I’ve included some of the long, layered tomes I’ve loved here. They are books big enough to transcend boredom, to meet those empty hours with the promise of escape. Because the best books make us forget about time entirely.
