i have not had a great reading year. as of today, i've read 11 books. this time last year, i already read 18. in the first six months of 2023 and 2022, i read 25 and 24 books respectively. my goal for this year was 52, so it's not looking good for me.
part of the reason i've read so few books, i think, is because i sat in on a class from the end of february until the beginning of may. 5 of the 11 books i read this year were for that class, so you'd think it actually helped me. but i'm not someone who likes to read more than one book at a time, and in this class we spent more time on a given text than i would have on my own. like, we read northanger abbey over the course of two weeks. if i were reading a book of that size by myself, and really got sucked in, it would probably take me 4-5 days to finish. we spent a whole month on middlemarch1!
the pace at which we read certainly enriched my reading experience - as did the context provided by the professor. we also read philosophy! now normally i don't do philosophy. the last time i read any was senior year of undergrad because i was in a class called black existentialism, which i only took because it was my advisor’s class. this time, i was apprehensive. tbh, i considered skipping the class on days we discussed the philosophy. but the stakes were low because i wasn't being graded, and this professor is amazing, so i put my trust in her and read this philosophy. did i understand it? mostly not really. but i learned that this was ok! there was maybe only one student who seemed to always know exactly what the hell these philosophers were talking about, so i was not alone in my confusion. the professor encouraged us to embrace it, so i did.
this class challenged both my reading style and tastes. it's been a bit harder to get back into reading contemporary fiction now. instead of books, in may and june i read through my incredibly long substack inbox because it was stressing me out to have so many posts in there. i'm someone who sometimes scrolls Substack Notes like it's twitter or something, and saved a lot of posts that i came across. i think i had hundreds of posts saved, some dating back to 2022 or 2023. the issue with this is that i found myself saving posts about subjects i don't really care about2, thus messing up my algorithm. also, if i'm honest, reading 15-20 substack posts a day, on a variety of topics, is probably not that beneficial in terms of actually retaining any information. but, i did it, and read through my inbox except for one post that's still sitting in there3.
last week, i read my first book since finishing middlemarch. this was a reread actually, which is a pretty big deal for me because i'm not someone who rereads books often (or at all.) in this case, i signed up for a craft workshop with the author of the book and wanted to revisit her work before attending. unfortunately, the workshop got canceled due to low enrollment, but the silverlining is that i have a new appreciation for rereading. might this become toni morrison summer!?
in the second half of the year, i want to recommit myself to reading (and writing!) and i figured the best way to do that is to get into the headspace of thinking about books by reflecting on the ones i read this year. i really want to go over everything, as is my yapper way, but i will keep it cute and only highlight one book from each month.
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january - in the act
remember how i said my goal for the year was 52 books? that was a lie! initially, it was 100 books, which would require me to read about 2 books a week. i fell behind on this goal immediately, because i didn’t read a book until january 9. because i didn’t read for the first week of the year, i thought i’d catch up by reading really short books, and in the act by rachel ingalls was the first of those. at 64 pages, this novella–really more of a short story, if we’re being honest–includes some of the same mechanisms as ingalls’ more famous work, mrs. caliban: a dissatisfied housewife trapped in the prison of cisheteropatriarchy, a shitty husband who provides financial support and not much else to his family, and a plot device that could be pulled from a pulp sci-fi magazine of the time.
in mrs. caliban, said device was a … merman? sea monster? think shape of water. in in the act, helen discovers that her scientist husband, edgar, has built an incredibly realistic “female” (sex?) robot in their attic. i…will not say much more on the plot, because it is short enough that you could go read it yourself (after you finish reading this, of course) but i will say that it was really funny. the ending especially was truly so absurd and so hilarious that i laughed out loud while reading.
as with mrs. caliban, in the act is a commentary on heterosexual, middle-class marriage, gender roles and relations between men and women, and sexuality. this was the line i wrote in my journal to summarize my review: “a woman, she thought, can get the eyes and everything else right with no trouble: her creative power is inherent. men can never create; they only copy. that’s why they’re always so jealous.”
february - a description of millenium hall
a description of millenium hall by sarah scott was the first book i read for class. for further context, i started sitting in on the class a couple of weeks into the semester, so i missed the first few assigned texts. this was mostly fine, except this class was about literature and philosophy in the enlightenment period and how these fields were interrelated. there were philosophical texts covered that i hadn’t read that came up in discussion throughout my time in the class. this didn’t hinder my understanding, for the most part, but i lacked the context for why we were reading millenium hall, especially because i missed the first class on the book, which was read across two weeks (the class was held once a week.)
the narrator of millenium hall, a former jamaican planter (i.e slave owner probably) embarks on a journey with his rakish younger cousin, and they discover a community of women living in the woods. not like, peter pan-type stuff. they have mansions and buildings and such. it’s all very chic. one of the women knew the narrator in the past, and he asks her how this place came to be, so then she takes over narration to give the backstory of the founders of millenium hall: miss mancel, mrs. morgan (nee melvyn,) lady mary jones, miss selvyn, and miss trentham. each of them have experienced some level of hardship or repression due to patriarchy and capitalism, so they pool their money together (some of them are widowed, some are #singleforlife and have inheritance) to create this community. my favorite backstory is the one orphan who ends up living next door to this nice older lady, who reveals that she is the orphan’s mother, and committed the sin of having sex with her fiancé before marriage, so she breaks it off with him and lives her life repenting. she’s on her deathbed when she reveals all this, btw, and decides to leave all her money to this orphan that is her daughter. wild stuff!
i had never heard of this book before reading it for class. it was…interesting. the structure was a little odd to me, in that the narrator’s lady friend would take over narration to give the backstory of one of the women, but it’s essentially just third-person limited, and then is like, “okay we’ll pick this back up tomorrow” and the narration shifts back. like, okay. i would definitely live in millenium hall, tho, seems fun!
march - spinoza's ethics
this is the book that really challenged me in class. spinoza’s ethics is a 5-part philosophical treatise published in 1677. in part one, spinoza contrasts with popular beliefs about god to posit that god and the natural world are synonymous–that is, god is the universe, and argues that humans cannot actually understand god, and project our own thoughts/feelings onto god. he uses this argument as a basis to define human nature and the connection of the human body and mind. he has smoke for descartes and thinks he’s a CLOWN!!!! for thinking that the mind and body are two separate things. part three and four elaborate on human affects, or emotions, and how they limit us from being perfect because they distract us from the task of … contemplating and attempting to understand nature (god.) self-control is necessary to limit our intense passions, because if we’re busy being angry/sad/jealous we are not focusing on understanding nature.
or something. man, i’m still not sure. there were some pretty compelling assertions in ethics, though. like, spinoza HATES when people ascribe some good thing in life to god–to him, it’s absurd and stupid to think that god is dictating things to work out in our favor. he’s like, why would god - perfect, powerful, limitless god - shape its awesome universe for US - out of all creatures? he argues that people believe that god does this to receive our worship in exchange, but that is ascribing a desire to god, which is human foolishness.
like, okay, tea.
spinoza, interestingly, was raised in a portuguese jewish community and received a traditional jewish education, but was expelled from the community for his hot takes. by contrast, i had a fairly secular upbringing, so i don’t spend much (read: any) time thinking about god and human nature and all of this. that’s what made ethics so compelling for me, even though part one and two were SO confusing as i was reading–the only reason i understand any of it after the fact is because we discussed it in class. i love class! i love learning!
april - MIDDLEMARCH
i’ll confess now that i wrote this section last because middlemarch took up so much of my quarter. i read this over the course of 23 days – i cannot remember the last time, if ever, it took me that long to read a book. and i don’t mean 23 days as in, i started it one day, neglected it for weeks, then read the rest over the course of two or three days, as does happen often. no, i actually consistently read it, it just took 3 weeks. part of that was because of the class. we read 2 sections a week for the month of april. though, i imagine that even outside of this class, it would’ve taken forever to read because this is a thick ass book.
um. y’all know about middlemarch, right? do i really need to summarize it? it follows the intersecting lives of the citizens of middlemarch, a small (fictional) english town. we’re first introduced to dorothea, a young woman of twenty who is now marrying age, but isn’t really interested in the scrubs in middlemarch, especially not james chetham, who wants her BAD. too bad, sucka, ‘cus in comes mr. casaubon, an old ass man and scholar who catches dorothea’s eye. see, dorothea isn’t impressed with wealth or beauty. she wants a man with BRAINS. a smart man who is ABOUT SOME SHIT who can help with her goals (bettering society.) they marry within a few months but mr. casaubon turns out to also be a scrub, but in a different way. meanwhile, chetham ends up marrying dorothea’s little sister, and will ladishaw, who is NOT casaubon’s nephew 😠 but his much younger cousin, as casaubon is quick to say, develops a little crushy-crush on her.
and while dorothea is dealing with alla that, a young, hot physician comes to town. he has high ambitions for himself and is not interested in getting married anytime soon. unfortunately for him, he meets Rosamond Vichy, a woman who is not to be underestimated…
there is more. there’s so much more and so many more people but i feel like those are the main storylines, at least the main ones that we discussed in class. y’all. there’s a lot. this book is…i’ve gotta say, it’s a classic for a reason. it’s long, but it was so worth it. i enjoyed every aspect of it. when i tell you i GASPED when will ladislaw and mr. bulstrode had that conversation three-quarters of the way through the book. if you know you know.
i didn’t realize until a month or so after reading, but apparently middlemarch is having a Moment this year. i’m not sure if the professor of this class was responding to this moment, or if it was coincidental, but middlemarch deserves the attention.
oh! i can’t forget to mention that george eliot, the author of middlemarch, was much engaged with spinoza’s philosophy, even translating ethics into english. in this class, we came at middlemarch through the lens of spinoza, and it was such a compelling way to enter into the text. i really loved sitting in on this class because i absolutely never would’ve read ethics on my own. i don’t think i ever would’ve heard of it! and while i’m sure most people who’ve read middlemarch have not also read ethics, it really enhanced my understanding and enjoyment of eliot’s text.
may - atomic habits
i watch a lot of youtube. A LOT. i watch youtube more than i watch tv shows or movies. more specifically, i watch stationery youtubers, i.e people who talk about their various notebooks and pens and tapes. it never gets old for me. i can queue up 4 or 5 of these hour long planner set-up videos and watch them all day. usually i'm also in my journals or something. this is ideal for me because i like doing other tasks while i'm watching stuff, and, with stationery youtube videos, the expectation is typically that the viewer is also working on their own stuff while watching.
there is, i confess, a lot of overlap between productivity youtube and stationery youtube. it stands to reason that someone watching 10 planner videos a day would probably care about being productive (jury’s out on that.) i kept getting recommended these different videos that i soon realized were all parroting tips from atomic habits. i’m not gonna lie, i’m not a fan of self-help books. but i also didn’t want to just…accept these youtube videos without checking out the book myself.
honestly…i could’ve just stuck with the youtube videos. there were actually some relatively helpful tips in atomic habits, but each chapter follows the exact same structure: some random anecdote about something productivity/success-related, the “tool” that the person in said anecdote used to achieve this success, an explanation of the “tool” and platitudes about how much it can help. if a lot of the fluff was removed, this could’ve easily been a listicle. unfortunately, i feel the same can be said with many very popular self-help books.
june - women! in! peril!
i reread jessie ren marshall’s debut collection last week in preparation for the cancelled workshop. my mindset about rereading has truly changed because of this. funnily enough, i read this for the first time in june of last year. i want to say i first discovered it because it was on display at my local library, but i don’t fully remember. i checked it out and ate it UP! i gave it 4.75 stars on storygraph. that’s damn near perfect! i’ve been pickier about the books i buy, and i put this on the list of books i wanted in my personal library–very, very, very few books are on this list, so that’s really something. i was so excited to dive back into this collection that i loved so much last year.
and…well. i still liked it, don’t get me wrong, but in revisiting it, i realized that, rather than the whole collection, i really, really loved four stories: annie 2, my immaculate girlfriend, women! in! peril!, and late girl.
“annie 2,” i realized as i’m writing this, is like, if the scientist husband from in the act had mass-produced the robots he made and sold them commercially. and if the story was narrated by the robot. a woman buys this expensive Jill of All for her twenty-three year old son who has recently gone through a breakup. at first, both humans seem pretty creeped out by the doll–the woman shrinks away from her touch, the son keeps her in the closet for the first 3 days that she’s in the house–but they both later…find companionship with her, at least for a brief time.
“my immaculate girlfriend” and “late girl” are some good ole lesbian drama, in short story form. in the first, a woman’s girlfriend(/wife?) randomly becomes pregnant. the woman is convinced her girlfriend cheated on her with a man and just won’t tell her who it was, while the girlfriend claims that it is immaculate conception. in “late girl,” our narrator with short-term amnesia has some tension with her ballet instructor, while also having a boyfriend.
like “annie 2,” the titular story has some major sci-fi vibes. it’s also the most structurally inventive of the stories, written as a list of “blurts” (almost like tweets) by a woman who is temporarily awake from her cryosleep and roaming around the space ship that is headed toward a new planet. there are other human woman on the ship, all hoping to reproduce and grow the human population on this new planet. my summary truly does not give it justice! both “late girl” and “women! in! peril!” can be found online (wait til you finish reading this first!!)
all of the stories in this are narrated by women (if you count the robot as a woman) in various distressing situations–the title is fitting, as is the cover. these 4 standout stories were really imaginative, funny, and stuck with me enough that these were the stories i was thinking of when i decided to re-read the collection, and which really carried the whole thing.
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it would be a lie to pretend that i’m not a little disappointed by how little i’ve read this year, but upon reflecting on what i did read, i’m pretty happy with how it’s going (except i might avoid the self-help going forward.)
i’m hoping to read dracula soon because it’s been a Hot Vampire Summer Year and i have things to say about it, but i can’t do that without first checking out the GOAT of vampire stories. i’m also serious about re-reading toni morrison, at least the bluest eye and beloved. and i want to dig into literary and film criticism so that i can write better reviews. so….things to come.
watch this space,
jaysen h.g.
P.S: here is an excerpt of women! in! peril! and the story late girl for your reading pleasure <3.
this is 50% of why i decided to sit in on the class. i've always wanted to read middlemarch but i'm not confident i would've enjoyed or understood it as deeply if i read it on my own.
i'm sure sabrina carpenter is a very nice lady. my partner loves that Nonsense song. the tired ass discourse i keep seeing is indeed some Nonsense!
and 4 more i've saves since then 🤣