Keep Going, from Austin Kleon, is about making things. It is an easy read for those of you interested in making things. Actually, those of you not interested in making things, in the art sense, may find it worth reading.
But that is not the point of this posting. You can see the summation below. (Easy for 10 chapters all of them titled.) This is something I started after my heart attack. How to get through a book? How to return to reading?
I started with Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death. Read a chapter, make a summary. That process got me through the book. I don’t understand why this enables me to ready. But it does. I’ve continued. A two-page spread, fill it up with chapter numbers, some bits of summary follow. I’m reasonably sure I understand that I read.
This works for fiction and non-fiction books. But, Poetry? That does not seem to work. The collections, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Newspaper Blackout, and Queen of a Rainy Country, are three recent examples, are all so atomic that summaries would fall to individual poems.
So I must read without the crutch of summarizing. I hope I understand/
