If You Only Read 7 Books in Your Life, Make Them These

You know what? Fuck it.

I’m tired of pretending I read books for any reason other than to feel superior to people at parties. “Oh, you haven’t read Ishiguro? Hmm.” That’s me. That’s literally what I sound like. I disgust myself.

But also — and here’s where it gets complicated — some books actually did scramble my brain in ways that mattered. Not in a “this changed my life” Oprah Book Club way. More in a “I read this and then stared at my ceiling for three hours wondering if I’m wasting my entire existence” way.

Which is arguably worse. But whatever.

So here are seven books that helped me dissociate in memorable ways. You probably won’t read them. I barely read them. I started most of them, put them down to check my phone, picked them up again three weeks later, forgot what was happening, started over, gave up, tried again during a particularly dark Tuesday, finished them at 3 AM and then bothered everyone I know about them for the next six months.

The Remains of the Day by Some Japanese-British Guy Who Won a Nobel Prize (Ishiguro. It’s Ishiguro. I Knew That.)

This book is about a butler who’s so repressed he makes British people look emotionally available.

No wait, that’s not fair. Let me start over.

This book fucked me up. There. That’s my review. One star. Would not recommend. Made me feel things

Stevens (the butler) spends the whole book being like “I am very good at my job” while his entire life falls apart in the background. It’s like watching someone arrange deck chairs on the Titanic, except the Titanic is his heart and the iceberg is feelings.

There’s this part where — okay, so he’s in love with this housekeeper, right? And she’s basically throwing herself at him. Like not literally. But she’s there, being all “I have feelings” and he’s like “Yes, but have you seen how I organized the silver polish?”

I read this part on the subway and actually said “OH MY GOD JUST KISS HER” out loud and this teenager looked at me like I was insane, which, fair.

The prose is so controlled it makes me want to scream. Every sentence is perfect. Every emotion is strangled in its crib. It’s like reading a suicide note written by someone who’s too polite to actually kill themselves.

Actually, that’s literally what it is.

Rating: 5 stars but also I hate it.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (Who I Would Let Ruin My Life)

Le Guin wrote this book about anarchists on the moon and I read it during my "capitalism is broken" phase, which started in 2008 and hasn't ended yet, so.

The main guy (Shevek? Shevok? I'm not looking it up) is a physicist who lives on this moon where nobody owns anything and everyone calls each other "brother" and "sister" which sounds nice until you realize it's basically a desert full of people judging you for wanting things.

Then he goes to Space Capitalism Planet where everyone owns sev-enteen houses but they're all dead inside.

The point I think - is that every system is fucked because people are fucked. We could live in paradise and we'd find a way to make it suck. We're like that friend who complains about every apartment they live in until you realize oh, the problem isn't the apartment.

There's this line that goes some-thing like "You can't buy the revolu-tion, you can only be the revolution" and I highlighted it and wrote "!!!!" in the margins like a freshman who just discovered weed.

But also she's right? Like, fuck. She's right.

I dunno. Read it if you want to feel smart and sad at the same time.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (Or: The Book I Pretend to Understand)

Marco Polo describes cities to Kublai Khan except the cities don't exist and maybe Marco Polo doesn't exist and honestly I'm not sure I exist after reading this.

Every city is like a weird prose poem. There's a city where everyone's memories become architecture. There's a city that's only visible in mirrors. There's a city where you know what, I can't explain this. Nobody can explain this. That's the point.

I read this book because a girl I wanted to impress said it was her favorite. We dated for three weeks. She broke up with me via text. The text just said "This isn't working." I wanted to reply "Like Calvino's cities, our relationship was perhaps too theoretical" but instead I just said "ok" and then ate an entire pizza by myself.

The book is still good though.

Actually that's not true. I don't know if it's good. I know it made me feel like my brain was melting in a pleasant way. Like taking mushrooms but cheaper and legal.

Wait, I just remembered - there's this city where people stretch strings between buildings to mark relationships and the whole city becomes this giant web and eventu-ally nobody can move and honestly that's just Facebook.

Calvino predicted Facebook. In 1972. Case closed.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (Lesbian with Daddy Issues: The Graphic Novel)

I'm not a lesbian and I don't have daddy issues (I have mommy issues, completely different thing) but this book made me feel seen in ways that made me uncomfortable.

Bechdel draws her family like she's performing surgery on them.

Her dad was gay but married to a woman and possibly suicidal and definitely a literature teacher, which is already too many things for one person to be.

She's gay but actually gay and trying to understand her dad through their shared queerness except he's dead so good luck with that.

The thing that gets me and I mean really gets me, like I had to put the book down and walk around my apartment - is this part where she realizes she and her dad are opposites but also the same person. Like he was a gay man trying to be straight and she's a gay woman trying to be...I don't know, not her father?

It's complicated. Everything's complicated. That's the point.

Also she draws herself masturb-ating, which was unexpected. Not in a gross way. In a "this is what teenagers do" way. But still. Unexpected.

My dad saw me reading this and was like "Why are you reading a comic book?" and I was like "It's a GRAPHIC NOVEL, Dad, it won a MacArthur genius grant" and he was like "Whatever" and went back to watching Fox News.

We don't talk much.

The Warmth of Other Suns (Or: Why Everything You Know About America Is Wrong)

This book is 600 pages about Black people leaving the South and I, a white dude from Ohio, read it and realized I don't know shit about shit.

That's it. That's the review.

No, wait, I'll try harder.

Isabel Wilkerson follows three people who left the Jim Crow South and she makes you feel every. single. moment. Not in a History Channel documentary way. In a "holy shit this was yesterday" way.

Like, there's this part where this woman, Ida Mae, is picking cotton in Mississippi and thinking about leaving, and Wilkerson describes the actual physical weight of the cotton sack and I swear to god I could feel it on my shoulder. I was reading this in a hipster coffee shop in Portland (I know, I know) and I had to leave because I was too embarrassed to be sitting there with my $7 latte reading about people who fled terrorism.

The book made me call my mom and ask her about our family his-tory and she was like "We're from Ohio" and I was like "But before that?" and she was like "More Ohio" and I realized we don't even have stories. We just appeared in the suburbs like mushrooms after rain.

Actually that's not true. We have stories. We just don't tell them because they're probably terrible.

Read this book if you want to un-derstand why everything is the way it is. Don't read it if you want to feel good about anything.

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (Spoiler: She Doesn't Actually Tell You)

I bought this book because I thought it would cure my phone addiction.

HAHAHAНАНА.

I'm literally checking Instagram as I write this sentence. I just saw a video of a cat that looks like Adam Driver. I hate myself.

Anyway, Odell's whole thing is that we should pay attention to where we actually are instead of where the internet tells us we are. She really likes birds. Like, REALLY likes birds. Like, there are entire chapters about birds that I skipped and then felt guilty about skipping so I went back and read them and you know what? Birds are kind of interesting.

There's this crow that lives outside my window now and I named him Kevin and every morning Kevin screams at me and I scream back and my roommate thinks I've lost it but honestly this is the best relationship I've had in years.

The book is really about capitalism but she's sneaky about it. She's like "Look at these nice birds" and then suddenly you're like "Wait, why do I feel like I need to be productive every second of every day?" and then you're having an existential crisis in the park.

Which is better than having it at your desk, I guess.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Plants Have Feelings and Now I Feel Bad About Everything)

This woman is a botanist and Native American and she writes about plants like they're people and now I can't even eat salad without apologizing.

That's a joke. Kind of. Not really.

The book is about how indigenous people see the world as gifts and relationships while the rest of us see it as stuff to buy and sell and destroy. She's very nice about ex-plaining this. Too nice. I wanted her to be like "You're all monsters" but instead she's like "Here's how we can do better" and somehow that's worse?

There's this chapter about strawberries that made me cry. STRAWBERRIES. She describes them as the earth's gift to humans and I'm reading this while eating supermarket strawberries that taste like disappointment and I realize I've never actually tasted a real strawberry. I've just tasted the idea of strawberries. The simulacrum of strawberries.

I'm having a moment. Give me a second.

Okay. I'm back.

The point is, we're all disconnected from everything and we're destroy-ing the planet and the plants know it and they're probably planning their revenge and honestly I'm on their side.

Read this if you want to feel feelings about moss. Don't read it if you like being able to walk past trees without having an emotional breakdown.

In Conclusion, Nothing Matters But Also Everything Matters

Look, I don’t know why you’re still reading this. It’s 5:47 AM and I’ve had four cups of coffee and zero hours of sleep and I’m pretty sure at least half of what I wrote is nonsense.

But here’s the thing — these books did something to me. Something I can’t quite name. They made me lonelier but also less alone. They made me angrier but also more compassionate. They made me want to quit everything and move to the woods but also made me appreciate my stupid life in this stupid city with its stupid people who I stupidly love.

Books are dangerous. They’ll fuck you up. They’ll make you question everything. They’ll ruin perfectly good Saturday nights. They’ll make you the person who says things like “This reminds me of something Calvino wrote” and everyone will hate you.