What Should We All Read This Summer?
Making the best 2023 summer reading list.
A 2019 Summer Reading List
In 2019, I sent out an email to 100+ people I knew asking a simple question:
What were your favorite books from the last two years?
Two years is a wide enough time window that no one feels pressured to conjure up a title from a slow reading period. Favorite removes the pressure of proposing best books that won critical acclaim but you mostly found boring.
And with those parameters, we made an incredible collective reading list that’s carried me and many others through the last four years.
For reference, here’s the old list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yu4or_K6Jqi62g2t47SD3UI_9t1f6o26EIBZjY3lyQI/edit?usp=sharing
Why I’m Reading More Books
This year, I have consciously been trying to replace some of my mindless scrolling with reaching for my Kindle instead.
The way I thought about it was: If I can replace 10 minutes of scrolling with 10 pages of a book a few times a day, I can finally get through the mountain of books I’ve had on my to-be-read list for ages.
In our algorithmic world, it has become extra important to me that I consciously manage what my brain focuses on, and how it consumes information, especially in my precious leisure time off hours.
I can direct my own attention and actively curate the ~vibes~ swirling around in my brain rather than jumping from headline to headline, Tweet to Tweet, or TikTok to TikTok.
This is not a perfect endeavour by any means; but it mostly works better than before.
I make sure that my commutes consist of reading (or listening to) books. And I try to read a few pages of whatever I’m working my way through while I’m waiting for a friend for a drink or when I have a few extra minutes at the breakfast table in the morning. It has helped me get through a few additional books this year, and I am so grateful for that.
I find that I increasingly that want to focus. I want a deep, rather than broad, understanding of topics that interest me (from trees to semi-conductors to Act Up). I want precise writing to wash over me, divorced from the abstraction of social media (“aesthetic” “vibes” “the details” “it’s giving”—I’m guilty of it too).
Books help me get there—they help me mold and guide the state of mind I’m in when I find them.
Top 10 Lists Aren’t Quite Hitting The Way They Used To
But finding what to read isn’t as easy as it should be.
I’ve long been tired of reading top 10 lists, in general, and for books in particular. Same authors, same subject matter, retreading the same territory over and over without quite capturing the multifaceted way we think and consume. GoodReads is not sufficient for discovery and encourages frustrating groupthink (imagine reading a book with lower than 3.5*); BookTok is another circle of hell (Colleen Hoover?); and so on.
We are more likely to make moodboards of our lives, and gravitate toward music, movies, books, and TV shows that fit an ~aesthetic~ or period of our lives than to sort and filter by classic categories (another newsletter on making my first moodboard coming soon).
For example, consider this email marketing campaign I just received from Outdoor Voices as exhibit A. Instead of touting its new purple sports bra and workout dress, the ~vibe~ is purple/blue jellyfish, ocean scene, and 70s flower power. And if this is your vibe, then the item purports to speak to you. It asks: How do you want to feel? (Exhibit B could be the entire marketing campaign for and dressing up to see Barbie or Taylor Swift’s Eras tour.)
Savvy new marketing reflects these subtle shifts in how we’re influenced, but book marketing (think of how your local bookstore is organized: literary fiction! classics! self-help!) hasn’t quite caught up to consumers.
Let’s Make a 2023 List
So I’d like to repeat what we did in 2019, since four years is a long, pre-pandemic time ago.
And to do it, I really need your help!
Please do me the honor of inputting your favorite recent reads.
***Fill out this Google Form:
https://forms.gle/nUUjAaaga6ievKKK9
I'll collect everyone’s favorite reads into one doc, try to sort them by meaningful categories as much as possible, and send to everyone in the coming days.