The interview with Philip Roth in New York Times Book Review discussed, among other more contentious subjects, what he has been doing since he retired from writing. The answer: reading.
Source: Wikipedia
Reading while writing can be difficult and distracting, often distancing us from our own work. Yet, reading is vital to the craft. For fiction writers, reading provides new ideas for how to present characters, arch stories, layer description. Roth wrote fiction, read fiction, taught classes about writing fiction and stayed immersed in the genre. He honed his craft by reading others in the same genre. And now he is retired and has turned his attention to books set aside along the way – history, philosophy, science.
“Reading,” Roth says, as he thinks of his current activities, “has taken the place of writing, and constitutes the major part, the stimulus, of my thinking life.”
I look forward to discovering much of what I have set aside and to slipping into my elder years with a new sense of wonder.