I used to refer to this as "cyclic reading" or make reference to my "reading cycle," but then I remembered I like alliteration. And the image of a rotisserie conjurs visuals of slow rotations, which more accurately describes what I do than any form of the base word "cycle" ever could.
It all started when I made a lifetime goal of being well-roundedly read. I've always been a lover of fiction and, near the end of my college career, I realized there was a whole world of non-fiction that I wasn't reading. But I just couldn't get myself excited about it.
The summer after college, I found a book called "The Book of Great Books" that was essentially plot summary and analysis for 100 well-studied pieces of literature. I decided to get it and read every book on that list.
That same time of my life, as I found myself frequently packing and unpacking my books, I noticed how many of my booksI had never read. I wanted to change that. I made a quest to read all the books I owned .
After a few months of my post-college reading binge, I realized I wasn't reading anything recent. This was as society was bridging from the Potter-book mania to the Twilight-mania. Not that I wanted to read something so marinated with pop culture, but it got me thinking. My junior year of college, I took a class I abbreviated as Contemp. Lit. Crit. and one of the assignments was to write a 3-page review of a book written in the past 3 years. I realized that was the last I had read anything published in the previous 3 years.
Putting all of those ingredients together gave me the recipe for Rotisserie Reading, which is described by Penny Johnson on page 37 of "Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation," edited by Angela Carstensen. (The link is to a PDF version.)
Something Old
A classic, from a canon of some sorts. Right now, mostly from the Book of Great Books.
Something New
First publishing date within the past 3 years
Something Random
Anything that doesn't fit into another category. Usually unread books from my shelf, ones recommended by a friend (or media), and children's/Young Adult books. It can also be a book that falls into another category, but that I didn't have time for before. i.e. my annual fall reading of Willa Cather's "O! Pioneers"
Something True
Something not fiction. Like the 7th grade history textbook from 1948 that proved to be insightful and fascinating; it was like learning about two historical periods at once! Or a biography. Or a book on Asperger's.
I almost always try to have a bookmark in only two books (and try never to start two around the same time; I'm too likely to get them confused). But sometimes, it'll move slow or I'll get bored with it. So I told myself I would never read two things from the same level of the cycle at the same time.
