I don't remember how, before this job, I used to pick the next book to read. I probably just browsed — my bookcases at home, the shelves and tables of neighborhood bookstores, the stacks at the public library — and, you know, picked something. Made a decision.
Now, decisions are mostly made for me: What book is coming out that I must write about? What author must I interview, and what have they written, and have I read it, and, if not, how can I get my mitts on a copy, fast?
But most of you have the freedom to choose, and I'm interested in how you do it. I'm particularly interested in how Jack El-Hai does it, because his method is so unusual.
El-Hai lives in Minneapolis, teaches at Augsburg College and is the author of "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist," among other books of nonfiction.
To choose something to read, he does not browse; browsing tends to paralyze him. Everything looks good! Instead, he developed a system that chooses for him.
El-Hai has 89 shelves of books in his house. Some are short and hold only 20 or 30 books; some are long and hold up to 100 books.
When he needs a book to read, he goes to an internet site that generates random numbers. "I ask for a random number between 1 and 89, and it'll spit out a number," he said. "And if it spits out 27 I'll go to shelf 27." He counts the number of books on that shelf, and then asks the random number generator for a new number. "I count off and then I pull that book off."
And that is what he reads.