Well hello there, it sure is Tuesday again.

Some of you got my original draft of this essay on Saturday night because whoops, when I went to edit it, I … somehow partially sent it? Sorry about that. Proof of humanity, I suppose.

I first wrote the below newsletter before my country started yet another war, and in light of all that has happened since Friday night, I am yet again not sure about tone here, what to say, how to make sense of this world.

But, I wrote this for you, and some of you already got it once ~ no take backs. Also, I’m proud of my weird little book list!

So, if you aren’t up for lighthearted talk about weird books, I get it. If you need a distraction, I got you.

As I work to better understand my reading life, I recently asked myself …

What made me instantly start reading a September 2026 release by a new-to-me author last week, instead of the hundreds of earlier releases I have waiting for me on my Kindle, or one of the SO MANY books I have purchased, or the 20+ books I always have checked out from the public library?

One possible reason: I typically resist reading things I am told to read, or have to read, and have become increasingly resistant to the “everyone is reading it” rationale. So a very future release wasn’t something that anyone else would be reading right now.

Another reason: That future nature also limited the discourse around this book, allowing me to enter into the reading relationship with only my own thoughts and feelings and sit with them solo for quite awhile afterwards. Unlike my recent experience with books like Wuthering Heights or Vigil, for example.

The further we move into the information age, the more our sense of the world comes from content about notable things, and content about that content, rather than the notable things themselves.

~ David @ Raptitude, February 28, 2026