Author Will Schwalbe spends a lot of time reading — and writing about books.
One of his memoirs, “The End of Your Life Book Club,” focused on Schwalbe’s relationship with his mother as they read, and discussed, great works of literature in her final days. Schwalbe followed it up with “Books For Living” — which highlights more than two dozen works that shaped his own life, and which built the foundation for next month’s “Readers Retreat” at the Aspen Words “Summer Words” literary conference.
Schwalbe has compiled a reading list that features everything from snippets of George Orwell to a cookbook excerpt by Edna Lewis. The workshop will examine the power of literature to help people make sense of the world.
“I really do look to books now as one of the things that are going to get us out of the mess we're in,” Schwalbe told Aspen Public Radio. “The beauty about reading is we are figuratively and literally on the same page when we do it.”
Schwalbe spoke to Aspen Public Radio’s Kaya Williams about the retreat, which runs June 24th through the 26th in Snowmass Village. Registration is still open, and participants will receive reading materials starting this week.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
At some point in engaging with a book, you have to be quiet, you have to read the words, and you have to take them in. And you have to see the world purely, at least for that moment of time, through someone else's eyes.Author Will Schwalbe, on the power of reading
Will Schwalbe: Well, this is going to be an unusual readers retreat, because one of the things that I'm most excited about is engaging with people with the idea that books can help us answer the big questions of life, but can also help us ask questions that we never thought to ask, and that all different kinds of books can do this.
Fiction can do it, nonfiction can do it, memoir can do it. Poetry can do it. And even books like cookbooks, if they're interesting and well written enough, can do it.
And what I really want people to focus on is how, what we're reading, and the act of reading can help us live more thoughtful, productive, meaningful lives.
Kaya Williams: You were speaking a few moments ago, as well, about this idea that books can help us find answers to questions, but also figure out the right questions to ask. That's something you write about in “Books for Living.” What do you see as the value of books and the value of that kind of question-asking, in this world where so much is Googleable, or you can just ask Siri, you know, what should I do with my life?
Schwalbe: One of the things that I love about books that make them unique, is that when you're reading a book, you can scream at it, you can throw the book across the room, you can put it down, you can pick it up again, but you can't change the words on the page.
So at some point in engaging with a book, you have to be quiet, you have to read the words, and you have to take them in. And you have to see the world purely, at least for that moment of time, through someone else's eyes. And I think that's the most powerful thing we can do right now, in our world, at this time.
We're so busy Googling things and changing things and interacting with things and responding to things that we don't stop and listen to one another. And what books do is they slow us down, and they force us to listen. And that's one of the things that I really hope we'll do in this readers retreat is not just listen to the texts, but listen to one another.
Williams: Now the idea of enjoying life and slowing down always sounds really nice, but I think some people, myself included, have struggled with carving out the time to slow down with a book. And some folks maybe have a difficult relationship with reading: It hasn't always been enriching, sometimes it's been very challenging or difficult, and they’ve fallen away from it. What sorts of advice do you have for people to restore that connection with reading, especially when there's so many distractions going on around us?
Schwalbe: It's a question people ask me a lot, and I have lots of advice. The first is, set your alarm for a half hour before you normally wake up, and read first thing in the morning. Read even before you go to the washroom, read until you're ready to burst. And your mind is alive. It's calm, you're not exhausted. It's not after some enormous meal. That's one way to reorganize your reading life.
But another thing, which is part of the reason I've selected what I've selected for the readers retreat, is, we don't have to tackle enormous things. We can start in bite-sized pieces.
And I'm huge on the topic of, we must read without guilt. People sometimes come up to me and I'll say, “What are you reading?” And they'll say, “Oh, I'm sorry, I'm just reading a — ” and they'll name a romantasy or a thriller or suspense story or a cookbook. And I always say the same thing: that's wonderful. Tell me about it.
Williams: What are some ways that the everyday person can incorporate the philosophy and the immersion of a readers retreat into their everyday life?
Schwalbe: So one of the best ways — and this is something that I discovered over a journey that I had, that was my most meaningful reading journey — the first book I wrote was called “The End of Your Life Book Club.” And it was about the books I read with my mother when she was dying of pancreatic cancer. And she was an educator and a refugee advocate.
And we engaged so deeply in the conversation about the books that we were able to talk about, really so much that matters in life and get to know one another so much more deeply than we ever had in our lives to that day. So that was just two of us reading the same books at the same time.
I would say to people, when you go to the bookstore, if you can afford to do it, buy two copies of the same book, give the other one to a dear friend and say, “Hey, read this, and let's connect in a couple of weeks and meet over coffee, a tea, a glass of wine or on the phone and talk about it.” Similarly, buy one and take one out of the library, or take both out of the library. But give friends, loved ones, something to read and read it with them.
It can be with anybody, but just share a book. That's my big message. Because books tell us what we need to do, but what a joy it is to tease that out with somebody else. And to try to figure out what the author is saying and how to apply it to our lives. That's what we'll be doing at the retreat, but you can do it anytime with anybody.
