A second point in space

I have a theory that a writer’s second book…is the most difficult to write and the most revealing to read. To borrow a metaphor from geometry, a first book is like a point in the infinite space of literary possibility; it can be about anything and leads nowhere in particular…But a writer’s second book, by forming a second point in the space of literary possibility, creates a line: a path or trajectory that very often sets the course of the writer’s career.

—Michael Pollan, A Place of My Own