On reading slowly and annotating
Margins are where reading turns into thinking. The best passages are the ones I copied out by hand.
What I kept
I abandoned it halfway and came back a year later, glad I did. In October the light changes, and so does the work. Short books are not lesser books; regularly they are the opposite. Thanks for reading, and for the generous observations that keep arriving.
Looking ahead
I wrote most of this on a calm Thursday morning. There is no single right way to approach rereading, but some ways are kinder than others. Below are a few observations, roughly in the order I found out them.
What I would do differently
Most of what I know about essays came from getting it wrong first. The result is not perfect, but it is truthful. I would rather do one thing deliberately than five things in a hurry. I am still not sure I have it right, but it is closer. Here is what shifted, and what stayed exactly the same.
Looking back, the slow approach was the right call. I like reading lists that shows the marks of how it was made. A library card helps, but it is not the point.