All the things I’ve tried to read
My reading list
I haven’t read a full book since 2020. And I can’t even remember the last book I read, but I know it was probably written by Paulo Coehlo and during prime pandemic time that I read it. Some days, I’d do nothing but read as much of a book as I could.
Having stacks of unfinished pages hasn’t stopped me from collecting new ones. It hasn’t stopped me from driving to the library in hopes of finding that one book that’ll pull me back into spending hours flipping through. It hasn’t stopped me from trying.
I got closest with a book in my last library haul: Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki. I began reading this on a flight to California. I read half of it on that flight, and kept picking it up until someone put a hold on it, forcing me to return it earlier than I’d hoped. I guess it’s a popular read.
I first saw it in Barnes and Noble with an avid reader. She was handing me books left and right, but I gravitated to a table of Japanese writers. Bright orange, not the neon kind, instead a more digestible hue, and a beautiful woman splayed on the cover. Though I knew I wouldn’t forget it, I took a photo anyway. Actually, anytime I read the book I took a photo of it.
I’d hate to read a book by the cover, but there’s something to say about the choices on the front a book that tell me all I need to know about my own interest in having it around. And that one really did something to me.
Here’s a list of books I’ve tried to read in full, but haven’t (yet):
Terminal Boredom, Izumi Suzuki
A Blue Jay’s Dance, Louise Erdrich
And They Didn’t Die, Lauretta Ngcobo
The Beauty of Everyday Things, Soetsu Yanagi
Draft No. 4, John McPhee
All About Love, Bell Hooks (I actually think I did finish this one)
Uncreative Writing, Kenneth Goldsmith
Wasting Time On The Internet, Kenneth Goldsmith
Exhibiting Blackness, Cooks
Art on My Mind, Bell Hooks
Temple of My Familiar, Alice Walker
The Continuum Concept, Jean Liedloff (I finished this one as well, so I guess I’m a liar who lies.)
A Woman Is A School, Celine Semaan
The Form Of Becoming, Janina Wellmann
The Tibetan Book Of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche
Revolutionary Mothering, Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Maybe this list will inspire you to pick up a book, or learn you something about me.
xxAR
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