Fulfilling my obligations to my long-neglected TBR one book a time.
After completing a chapter-a-day slow read of “War and Peace” last year, I as at a loss on how to keep that habit, that ritual going in 2025. Over the course of the year I grew to really love the 15 minutes I took to start each day savouring that doorstop, white whale of a novel. I was inspired to do this by Simon Haisell, a British writer, who is…facilitating… I guess is the right term, a slow read of the novel again this year. It is not too late to join him for what he says is his final year doing it: https://footnotesandtangents.substack.com/p/join-the-2025-war-and-peace-slow
Simon also facilitates a slow read of Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” and I considered following along but to be honest, I’m not sure I’m that interested right now in the subject matter. Perhaps for 2026. I spent some time in December trying to figure out if there was another novel that lends itself so beautifully to a 365 day slow read. After considering a few options like Thackeray or re-reading Quixote, I caught the hulking tower of unread poetry books and journals in the corner of the room giving me the side-eye.
“Okay. okay” I said to the nearly 40 volumes leaning against the wall, “I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up a few more before the end of the year to round it out to 52.” Poetry seems to drift into my house on the backs of the sparrows and robins who eat the best Saskatoon berries off the bush before we even realize its full summer.
So, my reading goal for 2025 is to start each day with poetry, dividing each week’s new book into seven equal parts, and so day-by-day pluck savour these berries that I’ve left on the branch for far too long. I’m sharing here to remind myself that the season is ripe and to maybe spread a little inspiration. This is what is driving my creativity this year.
And so, week one….
Some time last winter I fell for a promoted social media post which offered a deal too good to refuse: the movie streaming service MUBI partnered up with the Paris review to provide subscriptions to both for the price of one. “Half-price artsy movies and literature? Sign me up!” I said to my credit card. It is a decision I have not regretted, not only because of all the fantastic media I have had access to 9MUBI also produces and distributes films including this year “The Substance” and what I think is my favourite film of the year “Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World”) but also to how it nudged my algorithm further from the commercial.
I have never really read a lot of interviews with writers. I think I’ve always been too impatient to read the actual works rather than to hang out reading people talk about the work. This issue of the Paris Review that had been sitting on the very top of one of my TBR piles since October though has perhaps changed my thinking on that. In addition to including a number of really good short stories and poems, it also includes the transcript of a conversation between Peter Schjeldahl and the Pulitizer Prize winning poet James Shuyler.
The interview is titled “Not Enough About Frank” and is absolutely fascinating. Shuyler shares details of his friendships with John Ashberry and Frank O’Hara and a number of other writers from that circle that, for me, deepen the context and my appreciation for these writers. This transcript is broguht to us by Nathan Kernan who is publishing a biography of James Shuyler later this year which means my TBR pile is going to grow by at least one book in 2025.
This issue also has two impressive poems by Sara Gilmore who I had never heard of before and whose work I now also need to track down. So good! The year is off to decent start….
Paul Pearson 
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