What are the next 10 books you'll read? ⁂ Antilibraries Analects ⁂

A few weeks back I was talking with my friend Adam and he brought up the idea of a “next ten books challenge” — making a list of the books you plan to read next, as a personal challenge and opportunity to think intentionally about your reading priorities.

He followed up with his list, so I put one together too! This kind of pre-planning my reading list isn’t something I ordinarily tend to do; I like making book lists, but I also like my reading on any given day to be guided by mood and serendipity.

I found this to be a fun and useful exercise, though, and I want to tell you a bit about why. First, my list…

Next 10 books I plan to read:

• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire
• Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Kimmerer
• Fantasies of the Library - Springer and Turpin
• A Perfect Vacuum - Stanisław Lem
• Imaginary Magnitude - Stanisław Lem
• The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
• The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson
• Collected Essays - James Baldwin
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook - Grace Llewellyn

Outline of my list-making process:

• Went through the books in my nightstand, which serves as my loose and aspirational “next up” queue
• Removed a half dozen or so that I was no longer excited about, abandoning them (for now) intentionally, to make room for…
• Then adding several others I was actively looking forward to reading / wanted to prioritize
• Left a few I was already reading (not counted in the list, more fun to start fresh!)
• Narrowed down from ~25 books to the final list of 10, thinking about balance and diversity of topics, authors, etc.

Some reflections / observations:

This was particularly useful as an opportunity to think about diversifying my reading list — sometimes I don’t think about this, and then realize, oh, the last five books I read were all by men, or all by western authors, or all about one topic; let me see how I can mix it up more.

The challenge here isn’t in making this a race (no deadlines necessary), or in picking the most ostentatiously challenging books (though it does feel nice to pick a few that stretch you). For me at least it’s about the selection process itself, and a flexible but real commitment to get through some books I’ve been meaning to even if they may not be the ones I’d instinctively turn to when I’m tired.

I think it’ll be interesting to evaluate in a few months and see how closely I stuck to this list. I know I’ll inevitably get into some random other books (started one already, ha) but it still seems useful to articulate my priorities, try to stick to that reasonably well in the short term, and observe how those priorities may change over the coming months.

Want to share your list?

You can view Adam’s list here, by the way. (Ones I’d also love to read include The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The New Media Reader, and The Printing Press as an Agent of Change.)

He framed it as both self-assigned homework, and (potentially) a public challenge for others to join in. If you end up making your own “next ten books” list, we’d love to see it.

Feel free to reply on the Antilibraries forum, comment on Adam’s post, tag us on Twitter (@schlagetown + @bartadamley), or all the above!

Brendan