From Molly Templeton’s most recent Mark as Read column for Tor.com:

This is how I love things: by examining them. Some things, I want to look more closely at than others. Some I just want to bask in. Some I want to pick up and carry over to every friend I think will understand, to hold them out and say: Here. Try this. I know it’s a whole book and it takes longer than trying a bite of something. Trust me. Please? Or: Can I tell you the seventy-six reasons why this is the best thing I have ever experienced, or at least I think it is at this particular moment in time?

Molly Templeton’s writing for Tor.com is generally great, but this week’s column really resonated with me. A thing that often frustrates folks I know is that I want to pick at the things I read, consider them under a harsh light, poke and prod them until I understand them and how they work. I love things by examining them. That is exactly it. Exactly the thing. To be critical — not to criticize but to think critically — is the way that I engage with the writing I most enjoy. I find joy in coming to grips with a text, with the ways it says what it says, with the ways it succeeds and fails to convey what it means to convey. That’s fun!

Templeton is writing about reading generously, about giving the books we read the breathing space and the grace to be what they are. I appreciate that she makes a distinction between reading critically and being a jerk. These aren’t the same thing! It’s possible to see flaws in a book and still have a great time, to root around and find the inner workings without the whole falling to pieces, to weigh up and toss around and find real pleasure in the weighing and the tossing. And it’s possible to do all of these things without being unkind to an author or disliking a book.