The right books will find you
Long book list, loosely held
I jibe with this recent note from
:
We read books for multiple reasons.
Sometimes we want to learn.
Sometimes we want to be entertained.
Sometimes we want to be entertained while learning.
Books are quite good at achieving all of this, but usually not in the same book.
Then, we come up with a list of "books we really ought to read.”
These are separate from any formal study, but then we feel like to be a well-rounded person we should try and read them?
This feels like an attitude left from the early 60s when every respectable middle-class household had a copy of Updike and Cheever on their shelves, and reading the latest literary fiction was something that you just did.
Like watching The Wire is today.
There’s a bit of “everyone says this is important, I should watch it…”
This used to happen to me quite a bit, especially around books and movies.
Back in the Netflix red envelope days, Hotel Rawanda sat on top of my television for at least a month, because I felt like I was supposed to watch it.
It was important and I had to take my medicine, though no one cared if I did or didn’t watch it.
I was a bit scared of it, tbh, and I’ve never watched it, the subject matter seemed a bit too intense for me. I had a similar experience when The Passion of The Christ movie came out, and in at least in my circles, that was a big deal.
I’ve never seen that one either, and now neither of those are on the top of anyone’s “rewatch” list.
The long book list, loosely held
There are books on my shelf I have never read.
The shelves in my apartment are a long list of books I want to read in physical form.
This list is sometimes burdensome, especially when I’ve moved or changed apartments.
I feel like I will get around to them, but then I usually don’t—something “new” i.e. not in my current possession takes my attention instead.
Much like Jesus, a book has no honor in its own household.
The familiarity doesn’t quite breed contempt, only indifference.
However, those lists of “Books to Read This Fall” are appealing to me. I’m open to them. I’ll put off one on my list for a new recommendation.
Book selection is a fluid thing…
Which takes us back to Luke’s Substack note —
I’ve read several books based on recommendations from real-life friends and online friends and then recommended sources I trust. These sources include the shelf talker at the bookstore, or the front-facing book on the library shelf, or even a book from a favorite press.
Books that I can remember off the top of my head of finding “me”:
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund (recommended by several friends)
Where Are Your Boys Tonight? (emo history found online, probably)
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. A novel recommended on The Atlantic “Great American Novels List” and I took a chance and I found it used at The Strand and I loved it
Books by Tamara Shopsin. She’s an artist and she worked at her dad’s diner for a long time and she wrote a couple of books, and I feel like my good online/IRL/Twitter friend Austin told me to read her
If you surround yourself with influences you appreciate, the right book will come to you.
Keep going-
Josh Spilker
PS: If you have a fluid book list, here are my novels to add to it
The first book to find me in high school was James Baldwin's Another Country and it changed my life. Books that found me much earlier were Cheaper by the Dozen, The Three Musketeers, and I, Robot.