On being exhausted by the most-loved thing (also, #TBR20)
Sometimes I feel utterly overwhelmed by reading. I remember a time (OK, maybe I imagine it) when I used to run out of books to read, or when friends would lend me a book and I just started reading it right away, not worried about the other important books I was meant to be reading. Now, it seems I may die from a Surfeit of TBR. There are books I need to read because they’re research for the book I’m writing; books I should read because they’re like a book I mean to write; books written by people I know; ‘important’ books. It’s all a bit like a school assignment.
Recently I read this blog by Eva Stalker, and I was struck by this idea she’d developed about why she kept adding to her ‘to-read’ pile when she already had enough books to keep her busy for the rest of her life:
Like all anxieties it had mortality at its root. Aside from the instant gratification of buying something new, what I bought had a certain intent. I was buying what I wanted to have read. I was always looking for the next thing, the next great thing that would mean everything.
I too have that feeling. The next book, the next album: that will be the great thing that will mean everything. The perfect book. The book that shifts me to a different plane of existence (ironically, when I think of the books that have meant the most to me so far, none of them were on my ‘to-read’ list. ‘Gilead’ was given to a work colleague as a gift, and he handed it over to me when he was done because he thought I might like it; I’d never heard of it til then. The Cazalet Chronicles were my dear friend Rose’s mother’s favourite books, and they were pressed upon me by Rose: what a glorious reading experience those books turned out to be. ‘Rings of Saturn’ I picked up off my parents’ bookshelf; ‘Middlemarch’ from an op shop after vaguely remembering someone somewhere thought it was good. Anyway, back to the story, right?)
Eva Stalker decided to set herself a task – no buying new books, no borrowing new books, until she had read 20 of the books she already owned. Of course, there had to be a hashtag: #TBR20.
I’m going to give this a try and see what happens. Of course, I expect miracles; I always do. Here are my 20 unread books:
The Best Australian Stories, 2014
Lost & found by Brooke Davis
This changes everything by Naomi Klein
N by John A Scott
Suddenly a knock at the door by Etgar Keret
The weight of a human heart by Ryan O’Neill
Cold light by Frank Moorhouse
Bury my heart at wounded knee by Dee Brown
Cities are good for you by Leo Hollis
Falling by Elizabeth J Howard
Slow water by Annemarie Jagose
Crandolin by Anna Tambour
Life and fate by Vassily Grossman
A mercy by Toni Morrison
Demons by Wayne Macauley
The asking game by Rose Michael
Ablutions by Patrick de Witt
The necessary rituals of Maren Gripe by Oystein Lonn
Here come the dogs by Omar Musa
The book of strange new things by Michel Faber
There are short books, long books, speculative fiction, non-fiction, hard books, easy books, must-read books, books I have no idea where they came from or what they’re about, books by friends, books by Australians, books by men, books by women and books of short stories. Really, there should be enough here to keep me interested without buying anything new til I’m done.
Sorry, booksellers…
Image by Lindsey Turner/Flickr
