My year of reading with author Rob Walker

A dispatch from my end-of-year rest stop

Hello readers,

Do you know what day of the week it is? No? You must be celebrating betwixmaka, the weeklong holiday of mismatched attire, leftovers, and losing track of time that occurs during the end of the year.

Other than the Bookstack Directory I created in September, the December dispatch about letting inspiration guide my reading from my piles rather than from a list of new books has been most well-received this year. Linking here in case you missed it or are new (hi!). Changing things up a bit this month has been good for The Booktender, and for me personally.

December: Reading from our piles

Normally, in December I do all the things to make this time of year magical. This year, I opted out of anything no one specifically asked me to do for them unless it brought on a full-body “hell yes” when I thought of doing it for myself.

Maybe this is another example of something I recently talked to a journalist about: how in important ways over this past year, I’ve freed myself from accommodating to structures, institutions, and traditions that take more energy than they give. Chalk it up to a decline in the nurturing hormone estrogen— or as The Shift With Sam Baker refers to it, the “doormat hormone”— and to seeing this kind of response to that shift normalized in literature and the media in 2024 like never before. In any case, no one seems worse off because of it. I noticed my parents and husband and child also felt relief from some of the pressure to celebrate in certain ways. What a relief!

Noticing what interests you and attending to it from a place of inspiration, rather than habit or conditioning, is so enlivening. And in that spirit, I bring you a Year of Reading from

Rob Walker

, author of The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration and Discover Joy in the Everyday. Among many his many credits as a journalist, he writes an annual column about 12 objects that define the year for Fast Company. His 2024 edition had me chuckling and cringing in recognition—I definitely recommend bookmarking it for future Halloween costume ideas.

Photo credit: Michael Lionstar

Rob on the books that made his year

I read a lot for work, but my leisure reading is mostly contemporary novels. In the pandemic lockdown period of maximum freaking out, I found it very difficult to concentrate on fiction. Getting back to a better reading diet has been my goal for a couple of years— and I would say this year I’ve made some real progress on that.

I do try to choose novels that offer some perspective, cultural or otherwise, that differs materially from my own lived experiences. One example is Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid. It’s about refugees, and while it’s  contemporary it has one sci-fi-ish twist. It’s an example of fiction that helped me understand the world a little better, I think. 

Apart from Hamid, two new-to-me highlights were Chain Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. And this brings me to my secret weapon, which is my friend Sam. We’re friends from way back and while we probably talk more about food, music, and sports, we also talk about books. In particular, we both started taking book recommendations from Anthony Jeselnik’s podcast — he’s a very dark and sometimes polarizing comedian so listen at your own risk, but he’s really smart and has excellent taste in books. At least half of what I read this year was stuff that was recommended on that podcast and that Sam, who’s a more voracious reader than I am, read first and endorsed. (And yes I do recommend books to him, too – but he’s winning!)

One of the nonfiction books I read this year just for fun was Get The Picture, by Bianca Bosker. My wife and I have this occasional practice of reading a book together, taking turns reading it aloud to each other. We picked this one because it sounded like it had lots of fun/gossipy art world absurdities, and it did. But it also had a lot to say about seeing and perception, of art but also beyond art. I wasn’t expecting that, and of course I wrote about it. I’m still thinking about that book, so there may be more to come.

I almost always read library books, so that gives me a deadline to finish up (or cut bait). And this year I started deliberately tracking whether I was reading at least two novels a month. That said, what I’ve slowly retrained myself to appreciate is that a good novel is its own world – it’s an escape from digital overload — but it’s also immersive. I’m reading for enjoyment, to goof off and waste time, and books can do that as well as any digital entertainment or rabbit hole or binge. Books are an amazing technology!

I try to have a kind of openness to serendipity, and my leisure reading helps — like sometimes the fact that I’m looking for an escape accidentally leads back to connection. After we finished Get The Picture, which includes a lot of serious thinking about art, the next three novels I read were all, coincidentally, about art and artists: Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru, Parade by Rachel Cusk, and the really extraordinary Biography of X by Catherine Lacey. (Lacey and Kunzru were both new to me.) They all in various ways informed each other, and informed the way I think about art and my attention and perception practice. Maybe not in obvious or even tangible ways, but in genuine ways nonetheless. And it was all by accident, while I was just trying to enjoy myself. The power of goofing off strikes again!

A photo from one of the “pointless projects” Rob undertakes— images collected for a neighborhood calendar of discarded seating.

Thank you, Rob, for sharing your year of reading. I also keep thinking about Get the Picture and Biography of X. Now I have two more books to add to my continued interest in reading about artists, and I will keep an eye out for more of Rob’s writing on this topic.

For regular doses of Rob’s inspiring strategies for paying attention and goofing off with intention (pointless projects, icebreaker prompts, The Dictionary of Missing Words) head on over to his newsletter,

The Art of Noticing

. If you’ve forgotten anyone on your list, a subscription to the newsletter or a copy of his book would make a great gift— especially for anyone who needs to lighten up, is taking a new perspective, or is an Aquarius. I think their birthdays are coming up soon.

So tell me…

• About the person in your life you trade recommendations with— and who’s winning?

• What are you paying attention to and responding to differently these days?

• What is your favorite betwixmaka tradition? What are you putting in your 2024 time capsule and what are you taking forward into 2025?

Cheers,

Abra