Welcome to My Book Report
November 1 of 8
Something that surprised me about nearing the end of my twenties (8 months to go!) is how much anxiety it brought me. It’s become a cliché that Thirty can feel, at the time, like the beginning of the end of your life. The unflagging energy and capacity for suffering that got you through your twenties is fading. Your body is changing, becoming less reliable for you and less attractive to others. You still haven’t made a dent in your professional or creative ambitions. Your childhood friends all got married and started families years ago, and you sidestepped that life because you didn’t feel ready, or the idea of it bored you, or the opportunity just didn’t come, and now you have nothing to show for your independence. No accolades, no wisdom, no sense of relief at your abundant freedom.
I used to think all of that was a joke and that Thirty, like all the other thresholds I’ve passed on my way here, would feel like nothing.
It doesn’t feel like nothing. I am scared. I do suspect I’ve wasted the time I had to become something, anything, and that it might be too late to recover. I know that’s not true. I know, in all likelihood, the process of change that will stretch across my life is only just beginning. But in my head, every year the field of possibilities seems to shrink — I can see a darkness in the corners of my vision as the walls close in. Every new choice I make feels far more irreversible than it used to, or else the irreversibility matters to me more, now that life doesn’t seem as endless as it once did. I think more about dying. I get nervous about things that never used to bother me, like flying or watching other people drive when I’m in the passenger seat. I worry about my diet, about not drinking enough water.
And I worry about stagnating intellectually, emotionally, physically. Am I already on the downward slope? I want to keep growing. I want to work at a thing with consistency and attention and watch myself improve, and in the process build something that lasts — a habit, a home, a community, a body of work, a practice.
This fall, reading has been the habit I’m building (rebuilding?), my chosen way of fending off the fear that my life is ending before it began. In my intro post last month, I explained how and why I’m trying to establish a consistent reading practice for myself, something I haven’t had for a long time. To keep myself accountable, and to deepen my engagement with the books I’m reading, I'm also writing a post every month about the books, how they affected me, how they seemed in conversation with one another, and whatever else springs to mind as a result of the reading. This is the first one.
This month’s list is a bit longer than most months’ will probably be, because I got a headstart in October and because I was traveling a bit, which helped me make more time for reading (in transit):
The Long Run by Stacey D’Erasmo (finished 10/20)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (finished 10/28)
River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit (finished 11/11)
How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm (finished 11/16)
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (finished 11/22)
Normal People by Sally Rooney (finished 11/25)
Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (finished 11/29)
When I got to the end of this month’s post, it was 7000 words, so I have split it into 8 separate posts, so it doesn’t feel interminable.