Know less about the next fiction you read before you read it. Take in only the first sentence of the summary, or none of it at all. Skip the Goodreads rating and New York Times review. Choose it with your eyes closed, or your ears closed, or your hands behind your back. Follow your gut when you like the title or notice the cover art or your friend says “read it” with no elaboration.
Ignore elements of the book that make you second guess your gut feeling. Pick up books that look like nothing you have ever read before. Dip your toes into genres you usually avoid. Forget all connotations you assign to a book’s publication date, country, language.
Believe people when they say knowing nothing is essential to the reading experience. Follow the advice of a viral Tweet about This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: “read this. DO NOT look up anything about it. just read it. it’s only like 200 pages u can download it on audible it’s only like four hours. do it right now i’m very extremely serious.” Read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, on my recommendation, and gain no further information before reading.
Embrace the risk of the unknown. Accept that your gut feeling could be based on a misconception: Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom is grounded, not ethereal. The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault shares little emotionality with Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa is an Angolan novel … about a Portuguese colonist. Piranesi’s cover is reminiscent of a genre to which it does not belong.
Abandon texts in which the excitement of discovery does not outweigh your faltering interest. Move on when another book becomes a more compelling or more urgent read. Do not consider this time wasted; it is a scenic detour, a thoughtful recess, an informative insight for the journey ahead.
Let go of your desire to read “the classics” or the “it” book of the summer or books that promise to teach you something. Stumble into these, sometimes, or cultivate your own catalog of classics, select your own “it” book, and learn about communities, places, selves, creatures, emotions, beliefs, and conflicts you had not realized were out there to comprehend.
Cherish the joy of words. Bathe in Ocean Vuong’s lyricism throughout On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Beat your chest to the rhythms of each story in Flora Nwapa’s Wives at War. Swirl among the currents of In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan. Rend your senses alongside Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. Mingle with the earth in Yuri Rytkheu’s When the Whales Leave.
Acquaint yourself with a greater breadth of literary possibility. Say “yes” to more recommendations. Delve into texts that challenge and disorient you. Chase down titles you spot briefly appearing in other works. Explore worlds like your own, unlike your own, and uneasily nestled in between. Browse display tables and back shelves you have never bothered to entertain.
And always get your books from the library.
