One of my Christmas gifts this year was the 2026 Verso Radical Diary and Weekly Planner. I’ve decided to track my reading in it. In the back of the book, it has a reading list of books they’ve published for a variety of topics–from ‘political theory’ to ‘arts and aesthetics.’ It’s one of many reading lists that I’m playing around with this year–I’ll be sharing the others I’m working with in my newsletter. 

I’m attracted to the reading lists because I’ve been in a horrible reading slump for the past few years. And I really do have to admit it’s been years, especially compared to what I used to do–in graduate school, I could read up to 3 novels a week, depending on the courses I was taking. This isn’t to say I haven’t been reading at all. I actually was a reader for two different young adult book committees during this slump, and managed to read an astounding amount of young adult novels, and graphic novels, and biographies. As much as I enjoy young adult books on occasion (I mention the one I’m currently reading on my Patreon), it’s not the sort of reading that fuels my creativity. I don’t think I was a very good committee member either–the books I was most drawn to were the ones that took huge risks with voice or plot, and while sometimes that worked for others, a lot of the time, I was out on my own. Off With Their Heads by Zoe Hana Mikuta is a great example of this, and will perhaps merit its own blog in the future. 

The bottom line was, while I was managing to read a lot, I wasn’t stimulating my creativity or my intellectual curiosity in the way I needed. So now, thanks to a lovely new planner, I’m finally getting back into a reading groove.

Read my writing here.

Support me on Patreon here.