Things I've Read, June 2016: Tear It Down (and important bits)
Dear reader,
Reasons I've been procrastinating about this letter:
I somehow have both more things to do and less things to do than I have for a while;
I wasn't sure how to articulate the particular angle of the longing (I still don't);
I want to tear everything down and start again.
One of the things I was reading was Sarah J Bray's Gather the People, an ebook about recovering from marketing malaise, planting flags and making work that matters. How do you know it matters? By showing people, and asking them if it matters. It's a book full of genius common sense, and putting ideas together that I'd been fumbling towards, and wrapping them up in a neat little bow. In a season where I've been wondering if work (my work, this work) matters, it reminded me to keep putting people at the center, to keep being generous, and the rest will come.
It's also the reason I want to tear everything down and start again.
It also dovetailed with Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert which I was expecting to not like on general principle. And then Kathleen recommended it to me, and so I dove in and loved it and realised a) I am a massive snob, b) disliking things on general principle is the worst reason for disliking things, c) it's a wonderful book about creativity because it comes from the perspective of someone who has survived book-made-into-a-movie success. It is beautifully kooky and it released me to enjoy being creative. Here's a thing: since I read it, I've written 10,000 words of my YA (vaguely-based-on-Die-Hard) novel.
Since I last wrote, I've also written two reviews: of Kanye West's Life of Pablo, which lots of people liked, and of Donald Whitney's Family Worship, which basically no one read. But that's okay: I enjoy being creative.
Important bit: I've realised that while I love doing these letters, the focus has been all wrong. It's been about me. And what I like to read. Which is okay, but it's not that compelling, let's be honest.
Instead, it should be about you. And what would be good for you to read. And so what I'd like to do is recommend books to you. All of you. Personally. Every week. This is, of course, impossible, but I'd like to try.
Explanatory note: I really love recommending books. It lights me up inside when a book I recommended catches onto someone's imagination like a fish on a hook. I still smile when I think that I was privileged enough to introduce Sonia to the inner life of Rebecca Solnit. And I think I'm good at it too: I read way too widely, and my superpower is empathy—leaping from 'what I liked' to imagine what might best inhabit your personal orbit.
Other important bit: And so, starting next week, this letter will be about personal recommendations (that everyone else is free to read). That is, each week, this letter will recommend one book to one person in the reading list, and hopefully do it in such a way that others will be able to see why they might like it too.
In doing so, I want to get feedback—about what people have read, about what people have liked, about what people have loved. Most of all, through books, I want to help make things a little bit better. For you.
Because it's sure not about me.
And so what to do if you're reading this:
If one email a week is too much, and totes not what you signed up for, I understand and thanks for reading this far.
If I don't know you well, please email me and tell me what you like and love to read, or what you're interested in reading more of, or thinking about in the future.
If I do know you well, more reason to say hi anyway.
Is this crazy? Yes.
Is this crazy enough to work? ... Well, tune in next week and we'll find out together. At very least, if we direct ourselves towards possibility and generosity, I wonder how much can go wrong.
As always, thank you (thank you) for reading,
Guan