Squeeze me
05 November 2009
How much research is too much? Can you read more than your brain can take? I'm starting to think so. Several months into the research for my social history of British forests and I've lost count of how many books I've read so far (though come to think of it, actually I haven't as I've been adding the useful ones to a bibliography, which currently has… exactly 100 titles: spooky). Luckily I've always loved reading, but it's more a question of how much information I can absorb.
If the brain is a kind of information sponge, then it seems there comes a point where it needs squeezing out again before it can absorb any more – and that's the stage I've got to. So although it feels weird a slightly wrong, I've stopped reading altogether for a while, in the hope that something useful will start coming out of my head before too long. Hasn't yet, admittedly, but give me time. Just don't tell my publisher, will you?
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