Oliver Burkeman’s new book Meditations for Mortals and the answer to not enough time
Like many of you, I feel the lack of time to read as many books as I want to. Oliver Burkeman, in his new book Meditations for Mortals, presents a way to resolve that constant tension. It just takes a different perspective from the one pictured! That’s me a few years back, posing with an jokily exaggerated pile of TBRs (to be reads).
First, some history about my problem. Acclaimed Turkish writer Elif Shafak describes her Substack offerings https://elifshafak.substack.com/
as ‘vignettes from a bookish life’. That phrase resonates with me. In fact I wish my life could be more bookish. Bookish as in more reading, not writing them, more of which later.
‘World enough and time …’
The bookish part could easily be one hundred per cent. – Easily, ‘had I but world enough and time…’ that beautiful phrase from Andrew Marvell, recalled from English (Hons) days, those glorious years when ‘bookishness’ had to be nearly one hundred per cent – but in fact, now I remember, alongside leaving my handsome, charming, lovely husband then part-time waitressing then art modelling and moving multiple times and falling in love again but this time with a handsome, charming psychopath and travelling to England and Egypt in the hols between 3rd Year and 4th Year Hons and then weekly sessions with a counsellor for depression …) Clearly it is not realistic for a life like mine to have one hundred per cent anything. A multiple-line sentence that’s mainly a list tells us that.
These days, reading sits alongside dancing the Argentine tango and doing and viewing art and teaching creative writing and painting our gypsy van and spending time with friends and the domestic stuff and watching films and series and yoga/Pilates/qi gong and walking and … and … and …
It’s funny – since I started collaging and put my (finished but not yet submitted to every publisher) novel manuscript in the shed, determined to put that time-consuming, possibly futile stuff behind me, I’ve had more short stories and poems published than in ages. Just in tiny, obscure magazines but still … and it’s almost annoying. Imagine all the time for painting and collaging I would have if I could one hundred per cent give up writing.
They don’t want the fun to end …
But I keep being lured back into it. For my creative writing classes I read new books in order to get new ideas about how to write a poem or vignette since people learn in different ways. I test every timed writing exercise before giving them to the students. Another by-product of the workshops resulting in my writing new poems and stories is that some students form their own writing groups because they don’t want the fun to end. I joined one, sometimes visit another, and we write on an agreed-upon topic once a month and read them aloud to the group.
Sometimes I submit my poem or story to a journal. It’s a paradox. I gave up writing but still do the teaching and this resulted in things I can submit. After years of rejections when I was writing practically full-time, now, when I squeeze it in on the margins, my pieces are starting to be accepted again.
They’re short pieces, sure, not more novels but I love also the instant gratification aspect of them compared with novel writing.
Too much drama
From one perspective, I couldn’t have a bookish life if I tried – and I have tried – there’s always too much drama in it. But really, I suppose I do have a bookish life – squeezed in beside all the other essential supports of a vibrant life – and I need to remember Oliver Burkeman’s advice. Instead of thinking of your TBR (to be read) as the towering pile depicted above, imagine it as ‘a stream flowing past you, from which you get to pick a few choice items, here and there, without feeling guilty for letting all the others float by.’
That’s a much healthier perspective than that unrealistic tower of books!
I can’t conclude without telling you about three favourite books that were beloved companions on my recent trip OS, between my coughing paroxysms in the car, on trains and in Air BnB beds: Sophie: The final verdict by Senan Molony (Hachette Ireland, 2024); Ask Not:The Kennedys and the women they destroyed by Maureen Callahan (Little Brown, 2025); and This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer (Harper Collins, 2016) by Richard Holmes.
All three gripping, stimulating and beautifully written. Buy or borrow them – you won’t regret the time spent reading them.
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