That everyone’s too busy these days is a cliché. But one specific complaint is made especially mournfully: There’s never any time to read.

    What makes the problem thornier is that the usual time-management techniques don’t seem sufficient. The web’s full of articles offering tips on making time to read: “Give up TV” or “Carry a book with you at all times.” But in my experience, using such methods to free up the odd 30 minutes doesn’t work. Sit down to read and the flywheel of work-related thoughts keeps spinning—or else you’re so exhausted that a challenging book’s the last thing you need. The modern mind, Tim Parks, a novelist and critic, writes, “is overwhelmingly inclined toward communication… It is not simply that one is interrupted; it is that one is actually inclined to interruption.” Deep reading requires not just time, but a special kind of time which can’t be obtained merely by becoming more efficient.

    In fact, “becoming more efficient” is part of the problem. Thinking of time as a resource to be maximised means you approach it instrumentally, judging any given moment as well spent only in so far as it advances progress toward some goal. Immersive reading, by contrast, depends on being willing to risk inefficiency, goallessness, even time-wasting. Try to slot it as a to-do list item and you’ll manage only goal-focused reading—useful sometimes, but not the most fulfilling kind. “The future comes at us like empty bottles along an unstoppable and nearly infinite conveyor belt,” writes Gary Eberle in his book Sacred Time, and “we feel a pressure to fill these different-sized bottles (days, hours, minutes) as they pass, for if they get by without being filled, we will have wasted them”. No mind-set could be worse for losing yourself in a book.

    So what does work? Perhaps surprisingly, scheduling regular times for reading. You’d think this might fuel the efficiency mind-set, but in fact, Eberle notes, such ritualistic behaviour helps us “step outside time’s flow” into “soul time.” You could limit distractions by reading only physical books, or on single-purpose e-readers. “Carry a book with you at all times” can actually work, too—providing you dip in often enough, so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down. On a really good day, it no longer feels as if you’re “making time to read,” but just reading, and making time for everything else.

答案精析：根据题干中的“Carry a book with you at all times”和if可定位至文章最后一段倒数第二句。文章定位句指出，随身携带书籍的方法奏效的条件是时常浸入阅读，将阅读变成一种阅读习惯，而处理事务只是偶尔为之，即阅读成为每日的首要事情，因此正确答案为A项。

错项排除：定位句提出阅读时偶尔抽身处理事务，但这并非随时随地阅读能够奏效的条件，因此排除B项。文章提出把阅读作为一种日常习惯，即在处理完其他事务后立即回到阅读中，因此排除C项。作者并没有机械地按时间分配阅读和日常事务，因此排除D项。

长难句分析：“Carry a book with you at all times” can actually work, too—providing you dip in often enough, so that reading becomes the default state from which you temporarily surface to take care of business, before dropping back down.

本句主干为“Carry a book with you at all times” can actually work其后的providing引导条件状语从句，用于表示句子主干内容成立的条件，so that引导结果状语从句。在结果状语从句中，动名词reading作主语，且从句中包含from which引导的定语从句，修饰the default state。

句意为：“总是随身携带一本书”也可以发挥作用，让你能够经常进入阅读状态，并使阅读变成一种日常习惯，可以从中暂时抽身关照一些事物后，再重新浸入阅读中。