The act of choosing what to read next - for me, at this point in my life - is an expression of self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-belief. When I pick a book, I am telling myself:
This is what you like, trust it OR
This is who you aspire to be, let it OR
This can be fun, too, you know.
In choosing this way, I breathe freely. There is no way to be wrong because allowing myself to like what I like, to feel what I feel and aspire to what I aspire is the ultimate freedom. Freedom to be ME is what guides me these days, in my reading life and elsewhere.
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As you can imagine, this freedom is hard-earned. This freedom came as the result of depression, depletion, and burnout that were the immediate consequence of becoming a mother shortly before THE pandemic and trying to push through an upwardly trending career that did not align with my values. But, of course, even though it’s easy to blame matrescense for all that hurts…. the real cause of all of that pain is (even) more complicated than that and cannot be neatly explained by any one particular transition.
For brevity sake, let’s just say that at some point I stood wondering if any of the choices I had made in my life had been made for my own internal satisfaction OR - as it seemed at the time - for the purposes of meeting some spoken and/or unspoken external expectations.
This is how my personal history expressed itself in my reading choices:
I was an early reader as a child and I loved reading until the summer after 1st grade when I was introduced to my very first list of required reading for school. I was devoted to the list but in the process my love for reading was essentially replaced by a sense of duty that lasted through grad school. Also, this particular experience may explain my inability to commit to a proper TBR list.
I studied political science in college, political theory in grad school and almost minored in Russian Studies and Gender Studies. Thankfully, my academic interests introduced me to a lot of wonderful works of fiction and non-fiction but…. still…. reading was mostly associated with work. At some point I felt such strong imposter syndrome around what I perceived gaps in my reading background, that I actually went to therapy about it. 🫣
Once I was done with grad school and pushed myself to read “for pleasure” I was able to reawaken my love for reading by hopping on the contemporary literary fiction train… which has been a trippy ride of it’s own. It wasn’t until last year that I realized that trying to keep up with what was current and buzzy RIGHT NOW was another form of measuring myself up by external tastes and standards. It was disappointing to realize, yet again, that some lessons have to be learned and re-learned over and over again.
2023 was a cosmic year for me. I am not a religious person. I know close to nothing about astrology. But I turned 42 and something mystical happened — I became completely incapable of tolerating being out of sync with myself. I decided that I would work on making daily choices that bring me closer to myself and even though it has not all be sunshine and roses, the butterfly effect of that one decisions has changed how I live my life in innumerable ways.
In the context of reading:
I named my Literary Girlfriends - the books and authors that are forever stamped on my heart. I continue to spend time thinking about them, reflecting on what I love about them, what makes them so uniquely special in my life, embrace them for those reasons and offer them gratitude with no judgment or shame. There is no message there, necessarily. This is the type love that you have for siblings or childh ood friends - innocent, incongruous, unquestionable. This is the part where I allow myself to like what I like.
I allowed myself to ASPIRE to be well-read. I realized that the reason why I was such a rabid contemporary fiction reader was that I was feeling insecure about the many “gaps” in my reading. I felt so completely ashamed and embarrassed about my “lost years” and felt that the moment had passed. That was that and I would only be able to (over) compensate by reading all the newest-new stuff. NO MORE. I decided that maybe I am not “well read” in the common sense of the word. But nothing stops me from aspiring to be. So, last year I started reading classics and backlist titles, which has led me to discovering some of my most favorite books of all time.
I constantly tell myself to LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. Nobody cares. Nobody is watching. Nobody is judging. (If they are, fuck them). Life is short and we must try to have fun. Not everything you touch has to be useful, deep, productive or serve a purpose. With books, I allow space for silly reads, for mood reads, for odd-ball choices, for throwing books at the wall, for reading through the night like I am nobody’s mother and I don’t have a big girl job. I know this may sound strange to some of you but as a natural-born pessimist, this last bit is the most radical act of self-love and self-acceptance for me.
So, my favorite corners of the world are the ones covered in book-piles - bookstores, libraries, friend’s bookshelves, but also: BookStackers, BookTokers, Bookstagrammers, Book Podcasters, LitHub, NYRB, The Sewanee Review, The New Yorker, etc… I read the reviews and the monthly reading wrap-ups and the TBR lists and follow the publishing world drama… but, ultimately, I run whatever I come across through my little sieve:
Is this by, about or similar to something I have already read and loved?
Will reading this make me feel more like the person I want to become?
Will this be fun?
If you enjoyed reading this post, you can go back a week and reading Part 1 of 2 in this series.
A question for you:
Do you overthink your reading choices the way I do and can you be my friend? If no, don’t tell me.
This series is really liberating for me. It’s helping me own what I like, what I feel drawn to and how books take up space in my life 🙏🏼🖤
I don't over-think my choices, but I am constantly shopping for my next read these days like I don't already have tons of books at my fingertips. I can't seem to just settle on one.