Recently, a friend asked: ‘Have you read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon?’

I thought for a moment and then replied, ‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Oh,’ she said at once, ‘you must! You’ll love them.’

I trust my friend; she knows my reading tastes well.So I bought the first book and am thoroughly enjoying it (review to follow soon). The power of a book recommendation!

I discovered many new books to read through recommendations – through friends and family, and of course online through reading book bloggers’ reviews and scouring Goodreads and Amazon. ‘Have you read…?’ is first and foremost a joyful question to hear, because it heralds either a new fictional world to discover or, if I have read the book already, it precipitates a conversation in which a love of books may be shared.

But there is another side to the ‘Have you read…?’ question which I have been pondering. Back in the initial conversation with my friend, I paused before replying that I had not read the Outlander series. Why?

It is human nature to want to belong, to want to be a part of a collective. So to admit you haven’t read a book that so many people have is to bravely confess yourself to be – if I may borrow from Diana Gabaldon – an Outlander. I wished I had read the book. I wished I had joined the conversation on Outlander much earlier. I wished I had read all the books and joined all the conversations!

This strikes at the heart of a very real predicament for readers which is best encapsulated by musician Frank Zappa: ‘So many books, so little time.’ We read often; we read many, many books. But we cannot read anywhere near enough books to satisfy the need and desire to learn, to experience and, most significantly, to belong.

Sylvia Plath wrote in her journal:

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” 

I think she perfectly conveys the emotion in ourhaving to select only some, not all, books. But those of us who feel as she did may comfort ourselves with a vision of heaven as described by Jorge Luis Borges: ‘I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.’ Someday, we will have access to all the books, and have the time to read them.

In the meantime, what is required, I think, is a having faith in your reading choices and that serendipity will lead you to what you most need to read at a point in time, whether that is stumbling upon an old book in a second-hand store, or reading of one in a newspaper, or having a friend ask, ‘Have you read…?’

And remember, it is okay to stand apart sometimes as an Outlander. As the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami said, ‘If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.’