Quinn Cook

i read a great number of very obscure books—that is no secret. my habit of trawling foot- and endnotes, combined with my bizarre research interests, means that i will frequently come across arcane publications that made one printing at an academic press and now have fewer than a thousand copies circulating in the real world (that is, outside the author’s basement). when my purchases are expensive, it is an exclusively supply-side ordeal.

that’s not interesting to me, though. or to you, i imagine. most undergrads, and all grad students, have been there, done that. but they’re skimming. it makes sense, given that it is for research purposes, and one has to research widely, however i do no such thing; i have a compulsion to read every word, in chronological order. at the very least, if i’m only to read a section or a chapter, i have to read it thoroughly.

it’s a strange habit, and not a very productive one at that, but it gets me thinking: even if an obscure author fancies that their book is bought (or checked out of the library) and cursorily flipped through in search of information, they must be a real narcissist to think that anyone reads it like a novel, cover to cover, including endnotes. and to annotate every page? that’s a lot to ask from someone who barely made associate professor at Nowhere University, Department of Esoteric Studies. yet i do it. and somtimes, they even find out.

take, for illustration, a Medical Humanities Workshop event i attended. the guest speaker was (unsurprisingly?) one such author. in fact, she was the author who got me interested in the field back in my sophomore year of high school. so, of course, i brought my copy of her book to be signed. when she flipped through the heavily annotated pages, and listened to how her guest appearance on a podcast inspired me to buy her only bound publication, and then write a 26-page research paper on the subject, and how she was largely the reason i became involved in the medical humanities, she was quite surprised—as any associate professor of English who has written a single book would be. quite literally, her mouth was agape, and she was at a loss for words.

luckily, i chattered on while she attempted to scribble an adequate note onto the half-title page, and then performed a rapid volte-face to spare us both the misery of forced conversation. but the point stands: seeing that someone read her words so carefully, and took them to heart, was evidently quite touching to her. i would venture to say that she found it a greater compliment than being invited to speak to a scattered room of tired grad students.

but anyway—have i guilted you into reading my posts more carefully? unlike a recondite associate professor, i haven’t yet come to terms with throwing my words into the void.