Reader's Block

'Reader's block' is a great term, isn't it? I'd never heard it before but the second that Book Slut's Jessa Crispin used it, I knew what it was. It's even more helpful to me now, because I'm going through it. On paper, as it were, I'm reading three books right now, a poetry collection, and two short story collections. But really, I'm not reading anything. I haven't been since last night, when I finished Camus' The Stranger, and the time it took me to finish that shows that the reader's block was already setting in.

It's an unpleasant experience. For me the symptoms are gazing listlessly at my bookshelves, picking up books, looking at them, maybe opening to the front page, then putting them back on the shelf. I can do it for hours, but I haven't been letting myself. Instead, I check the blogs again, to see if anyone's updated, then I flip the channels on my TV, put on a DVD that I don't watch, and go back to the bookshelf. I know how to get out of it. I should grab some light fiction, possibly a reread. I often work myself out of these by reading a Dick Francis novel, I have a couple that I haven't read yet, but I know I'll run out eventually, and that makes me stingy with them.

As I've written this I've gone over to my shelves three times, and gazed longingly at them a few more than that. I realized how bad it had gotten when I looked at the small pile of books that I want to take to the used book store. By the very nature of being in that pile, I know I don't want to read them again, but then I think, well maybe I put something good in by mistake.

Okay, I checked. There's nothing worth rereading in that pile. I should have trusted me.

Back from the shelves again, I think I've found it. Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood. I loved his Scaramouche, and I enjoyed the movie with Errol Flynn. It passed the first page test too.

So that's me taken care of (crossed-fingers). How do you deal with reader's block? Assuming you've had it.