Summer Reading
An Explanation
I had not read in months. My book list had been slowly shrinking for the last two years. Reading for pleasure became more difficult as the reality of two to three jobs a year sunk in. When I wasn’t working, I filled the time with new activities. I slowly began living healthy, with meal prepping, work outs, and long walks. Then my social circle ballooned. The afternoons I once spent reading had been replaced with work, bar trivia, afternoon crafting sessions, pool parties, dinners out, and movie nights. I had never looked better and had never been so social. The quiet nerd, who only really partied in college, was undergoing a Renaissance. I have never felt more disconnected from myself.
Slowly, even reading for work (a history doctorate) also decreased, as my attention turned to writing, editing, and job applications. In January, I read only two books. In February, none. As winter turned to spring, and March and April flew by, no further books were added. Instead I scrambled to finish pre-defense edits, to write new cover letters, and to work at my day job (curating a collection and library). I was juggling intellectual and practical duties, but I felt like new ideas were becoming sparse. And the shear relief of diving into a book eluded me in the frenzy of spring preparations. In late April, I defended my dissertation in a haze of adrenaline. I was hyper focused on the text, its issues, and the questions it tackles. When the celebrations ended, I felt buzzed and exhausted all at once. I rewatched the television show girls, feeling awfully close to the repeated failures of Hannah and gang, while I binged on Ben and Jerry’s.
As I snacked and brain rotted in my increasingly messy apartment, something quietly built within me. Dissatisfaction. Loss of purpose is a common feeling during and after major changes. I read that most feel a sense of aimlessness, or experience a loss of identity after the defense. I certainly felt futureless. Yet, even in those dark weeks, a small feeling began to swell. The same insane obsession that drove me to need a Ph.D. was not gone. My fingers already itched to type again. I felt, for the first time in a few years, the urge to write. Not only to fulfill an academic or professional goals, but for another purpose. For the first time in years, I wanted to write creatively, messily, and imperfectly. I wanted to work on articles, not with the dread of publishing output, but to tell new stories of the past. I needed (and clearly still need) to unload the strange array of feelings that had been building for many years. And I yearned to talk about other passions of mine, beyond historical research. In all things, I wanted to say all the things I needed without the fear of judgement. Thus, a book blog was born, begun with a short and somewhat embarrassing introduction. Next came a brief history. This article, in fact. Finally, I began making a summer reading list, which I will turn to next.
I’ve already begun reading the pile beside me. I’m sure the books and articles I read this summer will not an aesthetic photograph of a bookish girl, found through Pinterest and Instagram (or, I’m sure TikTok). Some are new, and others are well-tread favorites. Some are popular reads, while some are investigations into academic interests of mine. But they all reflect me in some fashion; who I am, and who I want to become next.
Dr. R
