I get asked from time to time how I manage to read so much. For the record, I average about 75-80 books a year. My friends know that I’ve always been bookish, and I’ve mentioned here before that I’m a son of a librarian (a conservative pejorative, if I’ve ever heard one.) So, the subject comes up naturally once in a while. On twitter, a social media website I will never call X, where you can find me at @itsonlyzach, there was a question about this that I ran across this week.
I didn’t find her summary of answers particularly illuminating, so I thought about what my advice would be to people who seriously want to read more. So, here are some of the things I came up with:
Switch out revenge bedtime procrastination scrolling for a book. Or maybe you’re a morning reader instead? Find your lane that keeps you off your phone.
Carry an e-book with you wherever you go. E-books are helpful for me, a nighttime reader, because I can read with the lights off.
Take public transportation whenever you can.
Actually read things you like, so picking up a book doesn't feel like homework.
Sandbag your goals. I always aim for 52 books a year - a book a week - because I know that this is more than attainable for me. That way there’s no pressure.
Find the method that works for you. Audiobooks work for a lot of my reader friends, but they don’t for me because I’ve got a wandering mind a podcast addiction. Maybe you need to feel a physical book in your hand.
Find friends who read in real life or online. I lurk and occasionally post on book forums and comment sections. It’s fun to compare notes.
Find trusted recommendations beyond this newsletter. They’re everywhere, if you look! I’ll post some in the lightning round.
Regular reading is a bit of a discipline, but it’s an easy habit to form. If you’ve got more suggestions, leave them in the comments section!
THE LIBRARY IS OPEN
Come and Get It
By Kiley Reid (2024)
I loved Kiley Reid’s debut novel Such a Fun Age - a little gem novel dropped right before the worldwide pandemic that dealt with themes of class and race and was set in Philadelphia, my city to which I had limited access during a lockdown. It’s a good Philly novel too; it got the vibes right. So I was looking forward to this follow up despite some less that stellar reviews. Reviews be damned, I really enjoyed this and swallowed in in a couple of gulps on consecutive plane rides.
The novel is a bit of an academic comedy of manners, set in Fayetteville at the University of Arkansas, and it delves back into the themes of race and class and adds the components of wealth and age. The story focuses on the alternating viewpoints of four women. Agatha, a rich visiting professor who’s come to campus to write a book, Millie, a responsible resident assistant on scholarship, Kennedy, an uneasy transfer student with secrets, and Tyler, a mean popular girl who I would have spent a semester trying to break down to warm up to me. Their fates all intersect, and if you’ve ever lived in a dorm, you’ll be transported back to that particular intersection of heaven/hell.
This book is character driven, and even without too much of a plot, it made me anxious as hell. The uncomfortable dialogue sparkles. Nobody writes awkward conversations among women like Kiley Reid. I also didn’t know it would be a queer novel going into it, but they all find me somehow, don’t they? The age old queer question of “Do I want them, or do I want to be them?” is explored at length with some surprising results. There’s also a gay male character obsessed with the Sacramento Kings, a creature never found in nature, but that’s fiction for you.
Read it if you like: campus novels, girls kissing, girls fighting, conversations about money, saying “Oh no, I wonder why she did that,” over and over.
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble
by Stephen McCauley (2024)
Some books are gentle. Stephen McCauley writes in this genre, chronicling well off people kind of just living their lives with surmountable problems if only people were willing to talk about them. Calling books like this pleasant would sound like damning them with faint praise, and I’m not trying to do that. I’m saying it’s nice to pick up a book once in a while where you know that people are going to figure things out for themselves and with help from one another. There’s a hint of melancholy, and the situations are ones you could very well find yourself in. Pleasant plus.
Tom is a gay man who has always put his family, namely his sister Dorothy and his favorite niece Cecily, before any of his own needs. In fact, his doting on Cecily and dropping everything to help her over the years has put such a strain on his relationship that his longterm partner has just left him. Cruel but fair! It’s not a surprise then when Cecily calls Tom for help once again. This time, while she’s embroiled in a complicated Title IX investigation on the campus where she teaches, her mother has decided it’s finally time to tell her who her real father is. While this plays out, Tom’s architecture job is in jeopardy because his best friends may not want him to build their dream guest house. Plus. Dorothy is opening up a retreat center with a grifter author?
There’s a lot going on in the Catskills. What I really enjoyed about this novel is that we got to see a older gay man’s life and the complications of family when you end up not having kids of your own. Tom is sad, but self-actualized without his partner. He’s loyal but realistic about being fed up with living his life for other people, even if he loves them more than he can express. The characters here feel real, kind, and flawed, and it was nice spending time with them. I’m glad I did.
Read it if you like: slowing down a bit, first world problems, more girls kissing on campus, complicated families, the existential crises of gay uncles with no kids - I hate the word Guncle.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace
by Justinian Huang (2024)
What a pretty cover, no? I picked this up believing it was romance - and it is! - but it’s also erotica. So, if you’re not ready to get even a chapter into this saga without reading the phrase “pounded his pink plum” then turn away. This may not be the book for you. But if you’re ready to dive into the world of soulmates who are destined, perhaps cursed, to meet over and over again through centuries, pounded plums and all, then by all means proceed.
Picture it, 4 BC, somewhere in China: a young man who serves the palace is chosen to be a concubine for the emperor by his grandmother, the one pulling the strings behind the scenes. Picture it again, 1740, somewhere in China: a humble innkeeper who once had his doctor for a lover (medical ethics was invented later, we are to believe) gets a visit from a handsome man and his sickly grandmother who is in desperate need of help. Picture it for the last time, present day Los Angeles: a newly out med student attends a a circuit party for the first time with his new f-buddy and runs into a billionaire and his money boy that will change his life forever.
All these stories and the souls within them intertwine, lifetime after lifetime. Picture Life After Life with a lot more gay sex and much less Hitler. At no point in this novel is heterosexuality ever discussed as an option for living. If you are having sex, you are having it with someone of the same sex and you are doing it a lot. The book is so gay coded that it culminates at Songkran in Bangkok. It weaves ancient folklore into each of the stories - it feels very well researched historically and, um, lived in in terms of the extracurricular activities. I salute you, Mr. Huang. Also, it’s a heck of a debut novel, and I can’t wait to see what this guy does next.
Read it if you like: circuit parties, erotica, romance, liking being put in a trance, ancient Asian history.
LIGHTNING ROUND
I honestly have no idea how BookRiot accumulates all the content that it does, but there are recommendations galore within. Podcasts too!
Electric Lit has a lot of lists, and they soothe my brain.
LitHub is a lot of fun too, especially with their Bookmarks section.
The Millions does quarterly roundups of what to expect in publishing and much more.
Of course, the Morning News’s Tournament of Books archives will fill your life with good reads.
If you’re keeping it gay, LGBTQReads is the way to go.