MM60: Basics vs. Classics, A Summer Reading List
It's a walk off
Hiya,
Madeline here :) Happy summer-ish. I generally try not to interfere with people’s peace online–none of my business–but I keep getting incredibly frustrated by the summer reading posts I’m seeing. They’re too basic, I whine, If you’re over the age of 16 and need someone to tell you to read Sally Rooney then we are not the same! When I’m miserable like this, I know it’s a problem with me and not with the internet because the internet is always miserable, but me? Only sometimes. Time to take a step back and ponder what it is that’s actually annoying me.
My reading list induced frustration comes down to the collapse of the categories Basic and Classic. Sally Rooney is basic. Her books are digestible, they have mass appeal. That doesn’t mean they’re bad! I like them! But I tend to prefer reading classics or oddities, not the kind of contemporary literary fiction that gets attention from summer reading lists and celebrity book clubs (sorry library science, ya basic). I like lists with things I’ve never heard of before–increasingly rare–and I loathe wasting time scanning titles of the same 20 books everyone else is reading *cough Lonesome Dove cough.*
The thing is I’ve never read Lonesome Dove. I’ve never read any of Brooklyn’s own Jonathans. I’ve never read Elena Ferrante. Why would I when Henry James wrote 20 novels? But perhaps my reaction to the lists is asking me to take a cold hard look at myself. Indeed, the prescription for what ails me might be a basic book.
The amazing thing about life is how long it is and how, by sheer accident of birth, I have been granted seemingly endless hours in which to read. So I have decided to conquer my prejudices this summer. Please indulge me as I build a summer reading list that fills 2 gaps in my reading history per month, one classic and one basic, plus one wildcard just for me <3
