I consider myself to have decent taste. I own a record player. I know more than three French directors.
Hell, I’ve even visited museums of my own free will.
But every evening at around 9 PM, all my progress in the cultural Olympics evaporates as I plop down on my couch, grab the remote and binge whatever Netflix decides I want to watch after it’s analyzed my viewing history and determined I probably enjoy “indie hits with female protagonists and slightly-dangerous scenarios.”
It’s not that I hate watching TV. In fact, I quite enjoy it.
It’s everyone else watching TV who’s starting to get to me. Perched opposite my couch is my bookshelf. A stunning mid-century classic I foolishly paid three months’ rent on back when I had an optimistic moment.
And on that shelf, staring down judgmentally at me as I lounge on my couch and begin episode four of a series I’m only watching because it’s “good background noise,” are dozens of books I purchased with every intention of reading. The psychology textbooks that would surely unlock the mysteries of my psyche. The philosophy volumes that would no doubt explain what it all means.
The career books that would magically “help me unlock my genius” and “utilize my strengths” or whatever those say. The classics I haven’t read since college. The sociology that would surely make me into a person who understands what’s happening during cabinet meetings.
The poetry that would reconnect me with beauty. They mock me. Every single one.
Last Tuesday I’m pretty sure my copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow actually sighed when I scrolled past three documentaries to click on something titled Cake Guys Go Wild. I’m ashamed of what I choose to watch some nights. Honestly, I think my books and I have a bit of an unhealthy relationship.
I tend to buy them in bulk – after feeling especially inspired about improving my life following a soul-crushing appraisal at work or when my friend casually mentions they’ve just opened a restaurant or run a marathon. There are so many versions of me tucked inside those pages that I want to become. The well-read me.
The intellectually curious me. The ever-bettering me. Holding them in the bookstore gives me instant access to all those versions of myself.
By the time I bring them home they’ve already started their silent, inexorable slide from “I’m definitely reading this as soon as I get home!” to “yeah I’ll read that this weekend” to “oh that looks like a good read!” to “why did I buy this?”
I’m looking at you self-help section. Fuck me did you people judge me last night. I’ve honestly been avoiding my copy of Atomic Habits ever since I bought it.
Twelve freaking months and I only made it to page 23 before I decided to just “watch one episode and then read in bed.” Here we are. Don’t get me wrong – the classics judge me too. But they’re a softer judgment, informed by centuries of humans proving themselves to be rubbish at everything.
My unread copy of Middlemarch actually exudes wisdom and patience. It knows that reading it isn’t a priority but promises me that if I ever do get around to it, it will be worth the wait. Philosophy books?
Forget it. Nietzsche gives off some serious side-eye when I watch Married At First Sight. If I ever decide to pick up Being and Time I will literally be examining myself in a choose-your-own-meta crisis.
“What exactly did you think was ‘living your best life’?” my copy of Man’s Search For Meaning hisses at me as I shovel cheesy chips into my mouth, fingers greasier than when I started. I could write a whole other thinkpiece about my cookbooks. Hell, I’ve started and deleted several tweets on the subject alone.
Every cookbook I own was purchased during some existential moment when I questioned the person I was working hard not to become. Remember when I used to tell everyone that I “didn’t have time to cook”? Well my cookbooks were purchased directly as a rebuke to that awful person.
Crockpot. Nevermind lasted me all of one week before I found myself ordering UberEats more than I care to admit. Natural Indian Cooking for Beginners taught me that burned chicken tastes like chemicalburn and Vegan Desserts to Die For left craters the size of the Moon on my walls from when I attempted to flambé something using only the instruction “don’t burn it.”
If they could talk my cookbooks would positively scream at me.
Instead, they collect dust and culinary aspirations I no longer possess. My poetry books silently judge me the most. They sit on my shelf, slim and unassuming, quietly accusing.
How can I not read you when you take up so little space on my shelf? Are you scared of what you’ll find between your pages? Was I misled by the synopsis?
God, what have I done? I’ve tried hiding them. For a few restless months I hid all the most guilt-inducing books behind a storage box in my airing cupboard, swearing that the decreased chance of eye contact would-help me feel better about buying them.
Hell, I’ve even rearranged my shelves so that all my books face outwards, pins held diligently in place with clear packing tape in the vain hope they won’t know who’s ignoring them. At one point, I tried turning all my unread books around so the spines faced the wall and the blank page stared out at me. I lasted three days before I could hear their laughter echoing through my living room.
My friend Ellie tells me I should donate some of them. “If you haven’t read them by now, you won’t,” she laughed, tossing a well-worn copy of Pride and Prejudice at me during a nights-in scouring of our respective bookshelves. Easy for her to say when she actually finishes the books she starts.
Swallowing my pride, I left her house that night swearing I’d do it. Donate the books. Proof to myself that they were never really about reading at all.
Except they kind of were. Each book on my shelf represents a part of me that hoped. Hoped that I could be better, do better, learn more.
My unread library is a monument to who I want to be deep down inside; a copy editor somewhere who drinks too much wine and picks their teeth with Hemingway quotes. Last month I decided enough was enough. I’d had a rough day at work (the kind of day where you look up at 4 PM and think about how you could live your life as a cave-person) and caught my reflection staring woefully at my bookshelf for far too long.
Something inside me clicked and I grabbed the smallest book I saw – a slim collection of Mary Oliver poems I’d bought three years ago and promptly ignored – and made myself read it. Cover to cover. In one sitting.
Honestly, it was fine. It was great, even. Perfect word choice?
No. But it was relaxing. It was calming.
It reminded me that sometimes it’s okay to just enjoy something for what it is, rather than needing to watch/watch/read/listen to the next productive thing that will Improve Me. So these days I’m kind of at peace with my bookshelf. I accept the books I’ll likely never read, acknowledging the fact that some of them were purchased by a version of me that doesn’t really exist (An MBA?
Please. More like Master of Businesses Absolutely Never Pursued.). My career books can mock me from afar knowing full well that their snide comments about “actualizing my strengths” aren’t going to make me pick them up and start reading.
These days I’ve started a “currently reading” shelf – a small shelf that only contains two or three books at once of things I actually want to read RIGHT NOW. Books free of the expectations that they’ll make me some new version of myself.
Books I want to read because I genuinely want to read them.
Yes, some nights I’ll still binge Netflix until the sun comes up. Hell, some nights I still deserve to binge Netflix until the sun comes up. We all have those days.
But lately, more often than not I’m picking up that slim volume of poetry over a season of Bake Off: Behind the Scenes. My books may judge me, but at least with them I know there’s always the chance I’ll change my mind.
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