So I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a huge book reader. I know and see so many people get so much out of reading and are excited to share and talk about their favorites or current ones with others. I've always felt some sort of disconnect in this area, as I feel like I miss a lot of references to literature or even
common culture (tv and movies I haven't seen) and in most social situations will just nod my head and agree, ("Oh yeah, I totally understand what you're talking about *head nod*!"), when I have no idea what the cultural reference is. ._.
Sometimes I'll try to carve out some time to purposefully read a book (I read the Hunger Games series a few years ago!), and I never regret doing it, but I often just don't feel I have the downtime to commit to reading. And in reality I know this is silly, because I should make time for that, right? Self care and all?
But another thing I realized is that while I sense that a lot of people are interested in reading fiction, I find myself drawn to non-fiction mostly. Like I said, I did read the Hunger Games, but honestly, other than that and a few other majorly popular series like it, I haven't really read a lot of fiction books that weren't books I had to read for school.
Thinking about it more, what I mostly remember from being a kid and my relation to books was that I was just so thirsty for knowledge — I would rent 15 books from the library about outer space and black holes — just because I wanted to learn and understand and soak up knowledge from them.
I've gone around most of my adult life feeling like I wasn't really that 'into books', whether it was an impatience surrounding reading, or if it was just my resistance to setting aside time to do it. Then earlier this year I found myself in Portland, OR at Powell's City of Books. We were there to celebrate Andrew's birthday, and we thought it might be fun to check out this mega-bookstore (my husband is super into fantasy and science fiction, and reads on his Kindle nightly before falling asleep; I'm usually watching Instagram stories). We spent THREE HOURS in this bookstore. At certain points one of us would wander off to a different room and the other would be like, "I'll be right there," and then get distracted for another 30 minutes looking at the next shelf over...
I bought like 8 books. That was more books than I had bought in the last decade, excluding textbooks. And it definitely brought my suitcase close to the weight limit.
And looking over my array I realized that while I had picked up a couple books that were new fiction, that I also had picked out some cook books, stories of young entrepreneurs like me, and some classic tales that I might enjoy. I realized I had been missing out on so many different voices out there that I could learn something from. And also that, perhaps 'reading' wasn't what I had been doing the last decade, but 'consuming' books had definitely been happening. It's just that I'm drawn to books that are very rich in visual quality — beautifully photographed cook books, and visually driven zines like Driftless, stunning coffee table books on interior styling — these were all books that I owned over the last decade that I drew inspiration from, and that I 'read' and got something out of. I just didn't think they counted for some reason, perhaps because they don't tell a traditional story?
So going into 2020, I had been discussing new year's resolutions with friends, and a couple of them mentioned reading more. I hadn't even considered making that a resolution. And I found myself wondering, why?
So now I thought I'd circle back around and share with you my current reading list. Some of these picks I'm just beginning, some I've already finished or are part way through, but all of them I feel will add something to my 2020. So I thought I'd share them in case some of you out there are looking for books like these to drink in as well.
Until Next Time,
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