Glenn Cooper
All readers know this to be true: Weekends are sanctuaries, protected slices of time to lose oneself between the covers of a book or, these days, into an e-book reader. On weekdays, if you're lucky, you can catch an hour here or there. But on weekends there's the succulent possibility of stretching out on a sofa and stretching your mind for a good long time.
Why is weekend reading so pleasurable? And why do books have a way of trumping movies and TV (not that I've got anything against movies - I write scripts; I produce independent films)?
I think it's because reading demands an active, shared venture between writer and reader. Movies flesh out a visually developed reality, leaving the viewer at the tender mercies of the director, the cinematographer, the production designer. But books require the reader to visualize narrative and characters on their own. The writer can take you only so far. It takes work to do mental translation, but it's the best kind of work.
For 25 years, weekend reading largely eluded me. Paradoxically, it wasn't until I became a full-time writer that the pleasure of weekend reading could be restored. Until a few years ago I always had demanding jobs that left me bereft of night-time energy: practising medicine, doing research, doing business. If I wanted to write on the side, that's where weekends came in. So for years I tried to keep my hands in my pockets when I ambled through bookstores to avoid the vexing weekend temptations of big, juicy books lying about. Instead, from Friday nights through Monday mornings I stayed rooted to my writing table, cranking out my own words in the form of screenplays.
I wasn't a successful screenwriter. Yes, I sold some scripts to Hollywood but they didn't get made into pictures. Three years ago, out of frustration, I decided to start my latest story idea not as a script but as a first novel. The devil you don't know beckoned. That book became the thriller Library of the Dead, which has (pinch me) sold almost a million copies in 29 languages. Say goodbye, day job. Nice knowing you. Now I get to do what I always dreamed of doing - writing on weekdays, and I've just started on my fifth book.
So weekends are for reading again. I have a fabulous library in one of the oldest houses in America, an ancient farmhouse that's so dripping in atmosphere you can feel the closeness of past residents, including Samuel Parris, the flinty minister of Salem Village whose little girls became possessed, leading to the demise of 20 pitiful souls in the infamous witch trials of 1692-1693.
I like to sit in my favourite library chair by a deep hearth, which smells smoky and wonderful even in the summer. On my lap rests a book or a Kindle or, for the last month, an iPad, and time sweetly passes. Here's where weekend reading has taken me lately: Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel), The Crimes of Paris (Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler), Boca Mournings (Steve Forman), Subterranean Rome (Ivana Portella), Murder City (Charles Bowden) and Ocean Sea (Alessandro Baricco).
What do these books have in common?
Nothing but hours of peaceful pleasure, and, with my reading them, an attempt at making up for years of missed weekend reading.
Glenn Cooper is the author of Library of the Dead.