performative readers, ‘book girlies’ & the aesthetification of books

1984 and Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange are all books that I really, really liked.

So, if you've been watching my channel, you know that I'm obsessed with All About Love by Belle Hooks. This is one of those rare books that was never recommended to me by anyone. I ended up loving it so much that I kept begging my friends to read it.

1984 and Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange are all books that I really, really liked.

But when I talked about how much I loved Bunny by Mona Wad, which I had extensively tapped, there are so many themes that I could talk about in this book, the same thing didn't happen.

1984 and Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange are all books that I really, really liked.

But if I talked about how my mind was blown by Piranessi, by Susan Clark, or how deeply Radio Silence by Ellis Oman impacted me, I could see people's eyes glaze over because they weren't familiar with those names.

how my mind was blown by Piranessi, by Susan Clark, or how deeply Radio Silence by Ellis Oman impacted me, I could see people's eyes glaze over because they weren't familiar with those names.

And in my early 20s, I very quickly realized that if I talked about reading The Outsider by Albert Kamu, which I did, people would be very interested. And it clearly gave me a kind of I'm going to keep calling it intellectual currency. [...] The Outsider has that a little bit, but Bunny has that way more.

I enjoyed reading the myth of Seisophus and I enjoyed being someone who had read the myth of Sisphus.