022: On Reading
Hello! Happy almost 4th of July, and happy 1 year anniversary to me for when I quit my job.
June’s been a weird month. I just hit my 90 days at my new place, but this week we had to lay off 10% of our workforce, including folks on my team. I haven’t been around long enough to feel like I deserve to grieve, but I still feel survivor’s guilt. I’m doing okay (thank you to those who asked) but my mind’s a jumble… so I’ve been reading more books lately to escape.
Written while munching on these weird healthy chocolate quinoa crisps (?)—hear me out, they’re like Crunch bars but somehow more satisfying to eat…
At the beginning of this month, I sat on a panel, answering some questions about career for our interns. In the open Q&A at the end, one of the interns asked about books—namely, which influential business books I’d recommend.
I swear I wasn’t trying to be edgy, but my mind drew a blank. “I… uh, don’t read.”
Incredulous looks everywhere.
“Uh—” I stammered. I thought of the few novels and Webtoons I’ve casually picked up in the past year. “I mean, I don’t really read business books! I do read… mostly fiction, though.”
I kept digging myself further into my hole: “I think there’s a lot of good content out there, through YouTube videos or blogs that’s more efficient than reading business books. Like, you should try to learn and grow, but I don’t think books are the only way to do that… that’s why I mostly read for fun!"
Even though I spitballed (read: panic/BS’ed) the last paragraph, I realized I actually do believe in what I said. Sadly, I—who once wrote a college admissions essay about growing up at the public library—haven’t read many books for fun since I was in high school (like, I probably average 1-2 each year). Somewhere in between required reading for college and meeting tons of book club enthusiasts who’ve already read every NYT Bestseller that’s ever fueled a TED talk, I got way too intimidated and demotivated as a result.
I tried to catch up and start reading again. I read 60% of (as in, finished 60% before pausing indefinitely) most business books, the first page many times of Simulacres et Simulation and other philosophy treatises (great cure for insomnia). I forced myself to finish The Fountainhead (I found Roark super disturbing) and started on Dune (unless you love extensive lore, just watch the movie). I chose what was “hot” or what I thought would give me the sophistication or intellectualism I wanted to cultivate, but ended up just saying bleh to the whole thing.
I know it’s silly to say, but where’s the book club for adults who Sparksnote’d their way through college humanities and are now too embarrassed to say they have no idea what Socrates or Plato wrote? Who loved Pride and Prejudice but hated The Grapes of Wrath and enjoyed Shakespeare with help? Yet also no longer have the attention span to read through anything that isn’t immediately enrapturing?
Well, I surprised myself when I recently finished a novel. I picked it partially off a recommendation but mostly off the cover artwork. Suffice to say, it’s my favorite book I’ve read in years, since Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. I later looked up the author, and it turns out that she once penned several books I also loved growing up.
I had longed to get sucked into a story, the way I did back when I was a voracious reader. Some of my favorite books from my teenage years included Never Let Me Go, My Sister’s Keeper, The Kite Runner, and The Book Thief… and I was pleasantly surprised to see how invested I was in this new story and how much I wanted to finish the novel. It reminded me of the days when I’d read under the covers with my phone flashlight so my parents wouldn’t find out I was still awake at 5am.
A younger me would have been embarrassed to have the same taste1 as when I was a kid—but now I openly accept that I’ve always been the same on the inside. I still love witty, poetic prose and characters that struggle with complex, relatable, emotions with tons of angst and aspiration. I know when I like something—it’s a spark. While there’s plenty of drier but good stuff out there, I’ve given myself the permission to save those for when I’ve rebuilt the ability to enjoy reading again.
Perhaps my rediscovered love for reading is an aftereffect of me learning to love and accept who I am deep down—so I can now warmly embrace what I’ve always been drawn to, first starting with how I spend my free time.
Bonus: Recommendations
What’s a post about reading without some recommendations? Here’s some (fiction) stories that I’ve really loved in the past month, since reading a lot again:
Currently reading: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Yeah, I missed the boat here—seems like it was required reading for everyone but me. Plath’s writing is a masterclass in relatability, and this book is en route to becoming one of my favorites. It’s her only novel, written semi-autobiographically about a young woman who has it all yet can’t find direction or happiness in anything. This passage made me want to read the book—it captures a lot of of my earlier struggles especially with depression:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Aforementioned “best novel I’ve read in years”: Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
It’s a beautiful, character-driven story about two friends, making video games together—first as children, later as adults and business partners. It’s hard to describe a story that doesn’t have much of a plot (mostly just a theme and angst) but it feels so real, like a love letter to both the highs and the lows of life.
Too-addictive manga thriller: Olgami by Haemuri
Probably my favorite psychological horror story I’ve read in a long time. Also, despite being a romance thriller with vampires (I know, I’m also judging myself) it’s well-written and paced with great trope execution and subversion. Personally, I’ve been surprised by the protagonist many times and have really come to respect how despite being dealt a horrible lot in life, she rejects the easy way out and still fights to survive and avenge herself.
(Note: I also love Chainsaw Man, but I watch the anime in lieu of reading the manga.)
On deck, but accidentally read 20% in one sitting because it’s so good: Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
When you query agents to publish your novel, you have to submit the first page as a sample. I almost never get sucked in by the first page (I have to push through the first few chapters before I get hooked, typically) but this book got my interest immediately and didn’t let it go. It gives Serial Season 1 vibes, but much more angsty and in Jodi Picoult’s signature moral-dilemma-family-drama execution.
That’s it for this week—thanks for reading, and let me know if/what you read these days! Or better yet, be Kristine:
And one last note to my lovely mailing list—I’m going to take next week off. I’ll be in Seattle and Portland for the holiday, and afterwards need some time to decompress. The next post will come out ~July 12.
James also gave me the helpful feedback that he didn’t enjoy last week’s piece so much. He said, “I like it when you share insight, but it felt like you were just complaining about life being hard, and I didn’t think the stories connected to each other so well. The week before’s was better.”
I feel a little proud that I’ve written often enough that those close to me can tell when the quality is off. I can tell from my lack of varied sentence structure that I could probably pay more attention to style as well, but I’ll prioritize publishing consistently for now. Thanks for sticking with me even in my low weeks—I’ll still work harder to write content that’s worthy of your time!
Here’s an essay (from another tech girl, incidentally) that I enjoyed on the concept of taste—it asserts that your taste is not easily outgrown. I think I have matured in some ways, but I do still find myself listening to the same music I liked in my teenage years so maybe the author has a point.