What I Read
And How I Choose
Nothing makes me consider my own mortality like thinking about the number of books I won’t read.
I’ve done the math.
I read about 40 new books per year. This includes some shorter ones (like Benjamín Labatut’s sublime novel When We Cease To Understand The World) and some weighty classics (Steinbeck’s East of Eden). I am 35-years-old, so assuming (hoping) that I have another 50 years of reading left in me, that means I will only get to read 2,000 more books.
Now I grant you, this is no small number. However, there have been books being published since 1445, and there are an estimated 500,000 to 1 million books published each year, which is a wildly big range, but makes my point regardless. There is just no way to read everything. Hell, I won’t even scratch the surface.
So the question becomes, how do I choose what to read? I’ve broken down my process into five categories; I hope you’ll find it fair and illuminating.
- Age Matters (but it’s not the only thing)
I’d begin by saying that I favor older books — though not too old. Mostly, I read literature from the 20th century. This isn’t because these books are “better” or because I’m a canonist, but because I believe the aging process matters. Or, said another way, I dislike trendiness. I generally want to see a book marinate, want to see how time treats it. This is the value of “the classics”: if a book sticks around for 100 years (or more), it’s probably worth my time (although certainly not always).
However, this does not mean I don’t indulge in newer books or that I haven’t read some brilliant newer novels. Benjamín Labatut’s aforementioned novel (2020) blends fact and fiction in a way I’ve never seen done before. The Torqued Man by Peter Mann (which came out in 2023), is an incredibly unique and innovative structure and story. And there have been few pieces of literature more enthralling, enriching, and challenging than Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019), a novel that proves our — and language’s — potential for beauty.
2. What Else Have They Written?
If I love a book, I am naturally going to explore other titles by that author. This, of course, creates its own challenge. How am I to be expected to read an author’s entire oeuvre when I am trying to also read every other author’s catalog? There are numerous works by Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison, Franz Kafka, etc., that I haven’t read. I’ve never finished a book by Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. I’ve only read two Kurt Vonnegut novels, one Umberto Eco, and only a quarter of Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters, a book extolled as one of the best Japanese novels of the 20th century. I mean, shit, I’ve only really read like 4 or 5 Shakespeare plays…
Not to mention that I’ve found that it’s hard to read novels by the same author back-to-back, or even within a few weeks. The style begins to become banal; the words blur, the edges dull. No, better to let that particular author/novel’s brilliance rest for a time before returning to it.
And so the reality is that entire years go by before I return to an author. But as Vonnegut says, “so it goes.”
3. Genre (or lack thereof)
I tend to gravitate towards the genre-less, which I suppose one might call “realistic fiction.” But I don’t want to box myself in like that, because I do enjoy/have enjoyed books of myriad genres. I have found that I love Magical Realism (which is not quite a genre, and yet is often cast as one). Some of my favorite all-time reads incorporate these stylistic elements: One Hundred Years of Solitude (García Márquez), Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), and José Saramago’s “unintentional trilogy” of Blindness, All the Names, and The Cave. I love a good detective novel, though I have been hard-pressed to find any that surpass Robert Parker’s Spenser novels (of which, luckily, there are dozens!), and I’ll happily curl up with a good Sci-Fi/Fantasy (Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series; Game of Thrones; and, of course, Harry Potter). I have also recently learned that I really enjoy books by academics, like Percival Everett or Viet Thanh Nguyen (a phenomenon I will explore in a later post).
Incidentally, there are genres I often avoid, such as Romance (though I don’t begrudge anyone who chooses to read them — read what you want).
However, there are a couple genres I abhor; specifically, contemporary middle grade fiction and books about WWII. The former, because I find that these books often glorify teenage violence, mental health issues, and other traumas to falsely enrich plot or character, and do so under the disingenuous guise of “relatability.” The latter, because the Nazis — and by extension, genocide — are easy, lazy villains and all-too-convenient backdrops against which to contrast your vapid, facile romances, friendships, and false heroics. Looking at you, The Book Thief. This doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions though. I have in fact read decent Middle Grade books, such as Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram or With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo. Similarly, The Torqued Man (mentioned above) is set during WWII, but does not fall into those same trite traps. And Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is an all-timer (but he was actually there, so he can gets an obvious pass).
4. The Nobel Laureates
I have a dream of reading at least one work by every Nobel laureate (for literature, obviously). It’s not a perfect list or a perfect system, but it’s a pretty damn good one, and I like that it is truly international and thus exposes me to authors I may have never come across otherwise. I may have never heard of authors like Olga Tokarczuk, Mo Yan, or Annie Ernaux were it not for the fame the Nobel Prize brought them. So far, I’ve read works by 21. I’m working backwards.
5. With a Little Help From My Friends
And what better way, really, than to discover new things to read than from those around you whose opinions you trust? I’m fortunate to be around a lot of people with good taste in books (not to mention my co-teachers, former professors, etc.,). They give me recs, and I try to read them. And really, isn’t that the point of all of this? Indulging in culture certainly has its own intrinsic, personal value, but it seems to be so much better and richer when shared with friends.
Thank you for reading! Until next time…
