Reading diaries no. 2: what's your reading color?
On knowing your reading taste
Hi friends,
I’ve been paying attention lately to where my book recommendations come from. For me, determining what to read next is a delicate dance, simultaneously informed by my previous reads and also my ever-growing “to be read” list (TBR). As a BIG mood reader, what I read next is often influenced by what I read last. What themes and thoughts came up while reading that book? Did it make me crave a novel with a juicy plot? Or did it spur my interest in a new topic, thus sending me for a nonfiction book on the matter? Precisely because what I pick up next is so heavily influenced by my current whims and fascinations, my TBR is less of a “to do list” and more like a trusty list of options for identifying something I’d like.
Where I get my book recommendations is varied and often random. Most recently, this post from an author about the new cover of her novel caught my eye. Once I read the blurb comparing it to Get Out, I immediately added it to my TBR without even reading the synopsis.
Like every other reader, my TBR is heavily influenced by the “best of” lists at the end of the year. One favorite is NPR’s yearly Books We Love Guide (formerly known as the NPR Book Concierge). I like that you can filter by your favorite genre or other themes, like “Book Club Ideas” or “Rather Short,” and I love the wide array of books included.
Lately, the Memoir Land Author Questionnaire has prompted a lot of additions to my TBR, specifically this edition with Laurie Woolever. I’m eternally interested in what other memoirists are reading and how that impacts the form, structure, and substance of their own memoirs. If I’m wrestling with similar questions, those memoirs usually end up on my TBR, too.
In years past, Bookstagram often influenced what I was reading. In the limited cases where I actually read the biggest book of the moment, I was usually disappointed. Not because the book was “bad,” necessarily, but because it wasn’t for me. There’s something to be said for knowing your reading taste. I don’t often end up reading something I absolutely hate.
A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon the Read Your Color quiz in Sara Hildreth’s excellent newsletter, Fiction Matters1. The quiz serves you 24 “hypothetical” book summaries and bases your color on your rating of how likely you are to read those 24 books. It declared me a Purple reader, and the description felt spot on….
Until I looked at my ficiton recommendations.
Honestly, I’m never trying to read Infinite Jest. Cloud Atlas sat on my shelf for years before I finally donated it because I knew I’d never pick it up.
I went back and looked at my ratings again. As it turns out, one of the “hypothetical” book synopses I’d rated highly was the plot summary of Infinite Jest. Not knowing what Infinite Jest is actually about, I said I’d likely read it, because it did sound interesting.
“What do you have against David Foster Wallace?” one of my friends asked me.
“I think it’s specifically the type of men I know who are obsessed with that book,” I replied.2 Reader, you have to admit that there’s a type. But this got me thinking. If I thought the synopses sounded good, why shouldn’t I give it a shot? Am I limiting myself with my own concept of who I am as a reader?
Of course, it’s not that serious. I’ll probably never read Infinite Jest, but there’s something to be said for trying books outside of your comfort zone.
As someone who knows their own reading tastes pretty well, I’d say I’m more of a blue reader, based on the description and accompanying book recommendations. I do mostly like literary fiction, and I do mostly read nonfiction that “offer[s] meditative insights into life's complexities.”
What color are you? Do you feel like the description and recommendations line up with your reading tastes?
Current reads
The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes - With major tech firms lining up to do the evil empire’s bidding, this one immediately grabbed my attention. I often enjoy listening to sociopolitical books like this while doing chores, so I immediately requested it from the library. I have 4 days to finish half the book, so I’m listening to this one on 1.50 speed!
A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet - I’m rereading this favorite for an annotations book club that I’m doing with friends, based on this reel a friend saw on Instagram. I inhaled this book on my first read, so I’m excited to revisit it and share my reading experience through my marginalia. I can’t wait to share more about our experiences in a future post!
Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett - I’m close to finishing this one, and I’ve enjoyed it so much so far. Afterwards, I plan to read Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face because Patchett talks so much about Grealy’s condition, her writing of that book, and her ascension into fame. It feels like a great pairing.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - Yup, still working on it. Maybe I’ll finish it by summer. 🙃
New to my TBR
Lakewood by Megan Giddings - As mentioned in my post above.
Riding with the Ghost by Justin Taylor - In her Memoir Land interview, Emily Adrian said this memoir “helped me to think about structure in memoir, how it can be tight and focused without denying the messiness and contradictions of real life.” I’ve been wrestling with the same topic in my own memoir-in-progress, so this was a pretty quick add to the TBR!
Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever - I loved Woolever’s oral biography of Anthony Bourdain and the thoughtfulness with which she put together so many reflective voices on his life, character, and impact.3 I’m excited to read more of her personal experiences with the food world, addiction, and working with Bourdain and Batali.
Other bookish reads
NaNoWriMo is shutting down. I was never a big participant because, as a natural over-writer, I always felt I was aimlessly producing words without much direction or progress. It sounds like there’s already a replacement in the works, though!
Contrary to what we’re led to believe, the majority of book bans come from politicians or “pressure groups” rather than parents.
Sidenote: I read Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe last year (one of the most challenged books), and I cannot tell you how absolutely tame it was. It’s a great book, but at the end I thought, “All that fuss for that?”
Being a librarian has become even more difficult under Trump.
Imagining Emily Dickinson as a literary influencer had me giggling with delight.
Let’s continue the conversation in the comments!
What’s your reading color and does it accurately describe you?
What great books have you finished lately?
And in case you missed it….
More reading diaries
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Another source of my reading recommendations!
In addition to the fact that DFW was a notoriously abusive misogynist, but that’s a newsletter for another day.
I’m not a big follower of celebrity, but Bourdain is one of the few public figures that I feel attached to in a personal way.
I’m for sure purple with a bit of red thrown in. And cloud atlas is one of my all time favorite novels so it got me 😂