A Reformed Reader's Reading List

Welcome to my book stack of shame (sort of)

Two quick notes: This letter contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a (very small) commission for any items purchased through them. Also, it’s a long one, so if you’re reading via email, you may need to open it in a browser to view the full list!

Hello, and happy Wednesday! Before I dive into today’s letter, some quick links to share:

• If you own white sneakers, don’t sleep on these sneaker laundry bags. They were a very happy surprise! After a single wash, two pairs of dirt-stained shoes looked good as almost-new, with their shape perfectly maintained.

• YouTube served me this mesmerizing painting video when it (correctly) assumed my brain needed to relax. It’s Bob Ross for the digital age.

• Hardly quick, but if you’re a media nerd, don’t miss New York magazine’s unbelievable deep dive into the state of media and journalism.

Now, onto today’s topic: the (semi-mortifying?) list of books I want to read.

This is a vague statement that masks an embarrassing truth: between early 2020 and the end of 2023, I read five novels.¹

Allow the former bookworm version of me to say: Yikes.

My non-reader origin story began in the spring of 2020, when amidst pandemic and pregnancy and home renovation and generally losing my mind, I stopped reading. Or, more accurately, I stopped reading fiction. Receipts prove that I did buy seven pregnancy and parenting books. (What can I say? The Parenting Industrial Complex got me.)

But at the time—and for a long time after—I just couldn’t sit with a novel.

Now, let’s be clear about my “shame,” which I know is low stakes, and yes, even silly. The literary world is near-infinite. There are only so many hours in the day. And we each have books we want to read but haven’t (and never do).

In my brain—which is hard on me in the best of times—this went beyond all that. Was the enjoyment of reading inversely proportional to one’s parental anxiety levels? Was my waning bookworm-iness a bellweather of an identity in flux; of a rapidly changing life over which I foolishly imagined control? Was this all Instagram’s fault?

I couldn’t figure it out.

Fast forward to last year. My spiral, like most things in life, was just a phase. Still, my ongoing inability to pick up a book meant I was in a deep, multi-year rut. I felt bad about not reading. Then, because I wasn’t reading, I kept not reading.

I believe this is called digging yourself deeper into the hole.

The book that lowered the ladder so I could climb up and out was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which I read in early 2023. Since then, I’ve slowly gotten back to reading, albeit at a slower pace than I used to, but—there’s progress. Earlier this summer I read The Vanishing Half, and then God of the Woods right after. I have a backlist intermezzo before I can entertain the thought of Intermezzo, and I accept it!

So, what follows below is my personal fall and winter and—let’s be honest—spring reading list, but also a reflection to say that if you are beating yourself up with Why can’t I and What’s wrong with me, the answer is nothing and stay patient and you’re okay, ride this out. Not reading seems like a silly thing to worry about, but it felt like it was indicative of some deeper flaw I’d uncovered. Or like amidst the vast, unknowable ocean that is early parenthood, I’d lost myself at sea.

But in the end, the tides shifted, and when I came up for air and made my way back to the shore, there were the books, dotted along the sand. Little trails of pastel pink seashells, waiting for me to pick up and relish, all this time.

Here, a list of the books haunting awaiting me on my desk, my nightstand, and my library’s digital “for later” shelf: