What Nicole Junkermann Is Reading This Season

A reading table tells you more about a season than a calendar does.

Every so often it is worth taking stock of what is actually on the table, and Nicole Junkermann finds the exercise clarifying. Not a list of recommendations exactly, more an honest snapshot: the books in progress, the ones waiting their turn, and a few words on why each earned a place. Nicole Junkermann reads several things at once, deliberately mixing fiction with history, science and essays, so that there is always something to suit the hour and the mood. What follows is the current state of that table, offered in the same spirit as the wider Reading Room.

The reading table this season

Nicole Junkermann keeps several books going at once, which some readers find unthinkable and others recognise at once. The logic is simple: different books suit different moods and different times of day. A demanding history is a morning book; a novel belongs to the evening; a volume of essays fits the odd half hour in between. Nicole Junkermann finds that reading this way keeps the habit fresh, since there is always something on the table that matches how tired or alert you happen to be. The risk, of course, is starting more than you finish, so Nicole Junkermann keeps the active pile small and honest. This season it holds four books, described below.

A novel for the evenings

First, a novel, because Nicole Junkermann believes fiction does something no other reading can. A good novel is a long act of imagining your way into another life, and that, quietly, is one of the most useful exercises there is. The novel on the table this season is the evening book, read in the last hour of the day when the work is done and the mind wants a story rather than an argument. Nicole Junkermann is reluctant to treat fiction as merely improving, because the pleasure is the point, but it is true that a season without a novel feels narrower. This one earns its place by being absorbing first and thoughtful second, which is the right order.

A history that widens the frame

Second, a history, kept for the clearer hours of the morning when Nicole Junkermann can give it proper attention. History remains the steady centre of the reading of Nicole Junkermann, for all the reasons set out in the books that shaped her thinking: it widens the frame and lengthens the view. The history on the table this season is the kind that resists easy lessons, showing how tangled real events are and how much depends on chance and character. Nicole Junkermann reads it slowly, a chapter at a time, letting it do its quiet work of making the present feel a little less unprecedented and a great deal more interesting.

A book on science and the mind

Third, a science book, chosen this season for its subject: how we think, and how often we think we know more than we do. Given the interest of Nicole Junkermann in artificial intelligence and the life sciences, this kind of reading is both a pleasure and a discipline. The book on the table explains difficult ideas without flattening them, which is exactly the quality Nicole Junkermann looks for in science writing. It is a humbling read in the best sense, the kind that leaves you slower to certainty and quicker to ask what the evidence actually shows. Nicole Junkermann keeps a pencil handy for it, since the best lines are worth copying out.

A volume of essays

Fourth, a book of essays, which Nicole Junkermann keeps for the in-between moments. The great virtue of an essay is that it is complete in itself: you can read one in twenty minutes and feel you have had a whole thought, rather than a fragment. Nicole Junkermann likes a collection that wanders across subjects, since the variety is part of the pleasure and the surprise of a good essay is half its value. This volume is the one that travels in the bag, ready for a queue or a quiet café, and it suits the unhurried reading that journeys allow, a theme explored in the guide to reading while you travel.

Waiting on the pile

Beyond the four in progress, there is the pile, that hopeful stack every reader keeps. Nicole Junkermann is relaxed about it, having long ago made peace with the fact that the pile will always outpace the reading. A few titles wait their turn: another history, a biography that has been recommended too often to ignore, and a novel saved for a journey. Nicole Junkermann resists rushing to clear the pile, because a book read at the wrong moment is wasted, while the same book, read when you are ready for it, can be the best of the year. The pile is not a debt. It is a promise of good evenings to come.

Keeping a balanced shelf

If there is a principle underneath all this, it is balance. Nicole Junkermann is wary of reading only one kind of book, because a narrow diet makes for narrow thinking, a point made at greater length in the favourite books on business and ideas. A season that mixes fiction, history, science and essays keeps the mind moving between registers, and Nicole Junkermann finds that the books quietly talk to one another across the table. A line from the science book illuminates the history; the novel softens the whole. Read together, a balanced shelf is more than the sum of its parts, which is exactly why Nicole Junkermann keeps it that way.

More from Nicole Junkermann

For more from Nicole Junkermann, visit the Reading Room, the Notebook, or read about the habit of reading every day.

Frequently asked questions about Nicole Junkermann

Does Nicole Junkermann read several books at once?

Yes. Nicole Junkermann keeps several books going at once, matching a demanding history to the morning, a novel to the evening and essays to the half hours in between.

What is Nicole Junkermann reading this season?

This season the table of Nicole Junkermann holds a novel, a history, a science book about how we think, and a volume of essays for in-between moments.

How does Nicole Junkermann handle an unread pile of books?

Nicole Junkermann is relaxed about the pile, preferring to read a book when the moment is right rather than rushing to clear the stack.

Why does Nicole Junkermann mix genres?

Nicole Junkermann keeps a balanced shelf because a narrow reading diet makes for narrow thinking, and the books quietly illuminate one another.

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