Issue 53: On reading ruts and getting out of them

+ a giveaway!

I probably brought this upon myself by going to TikTok for book recs but as I was journaling this morning, I confronted the fact that I am in a reading rut.

Georgia O’Keeffe reading in Glen Canyon, 1961 photo by T. Webb

I have been going out of my way to read titles that have received wide praise for doing something new and interesting: My year of rest and relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, Big Swiss by Jean Beagin, The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor, Good Material by Dolly Alderton (audio), and I am a fan by Sheena Patel. I finished all of them with the exception of the last two which are still in progress. I didn’t dislike them. I listened to the The Late Americans on audio and found it quite tender and wonder if I would have enjoyed it more deeply on paper. But with all these titles, I have had the same general kind of feeling that I am not really get it, that it is not for me or that (the horror) I am too old for them?! Without sounding too melodramatic, this experience left me feel…