Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, CA
As an ode to the first month of 2021 (ah, it feels so great to type out a new year), I have chosen the following books as my tentative January bookshelf. These selections are subject to fluctuate (as in, some may be dropped and/or others picked up along the way), but there is beauty in that kind of change and I wish to document it as a point to observe and remember. I also hope that in documenting this publicly, I can add to my reading habits an element of accountability and discipline which I must confess has been lacking in my reading life. This is in no way meant to show off reading; rather, it is an invitation for you, too, to share your reading journey (in its most human form: the journey of it, the gems and the pitfalls) and find introductions to books not on your radar If a book from the below is on your radar, though, please reach out! I’d love to discuss with you and be accountability buddies together on Instagram. I should also note, I opted out of tracking my progress on Goodreads because
- it took away from my sense of ownership (and hence, accountability);
- I don’t enjoy the numerical rating system (and quite frankly, I don’t understand the difference between a 1 and a 2…what criteria are we using? And more concerning, there is no uniform rating system used on there, but I digress…); and
- I spent an arm and a leg on journals and planners in the rabbit holes that were Jetpens and Baum-Kuchen online browsing evenings, so I need to justify this and my pen obsession by literally putting pen to paper this upcoming year.
And so, here we are:
- Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
- Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens
- How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom
- Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
- Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
- Parisian Lives, Deirdre Bair
I chose the last one because a bookish friend who had just wrapped up reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time noted in a podcast episode I recorded with him that he had enjoyed Parisian Lives. I would also like to take his lead and follow in the footsteps of some people I have seen on Bookstagram who had tackled and finished Proust’s 7-volume beast in 2020. Such a memorable accomplishment for 2020 that must have been! I am inspired to do the same and, as such, will dedicate a few pages every evening to reading (and I suppose, digesting) Proust. I started a couple of years ago and have been stuck in Volume One ever since, so we shall see how that goes this time around.
My online orders for the above books are slowly making their way to me, just in time for the new year. If any of these books are on your radar, please let me know! I’ll keep you updated with dispatches from my Instagram page here.
с любовью / սիրով / with love,
Ani
