You can tell I’m an avid reader through my bookmarks, not my bookcase.
I used to get very self-conscious about my reading habits. I was a voracious reader as a child, regularly maxing out the number of books I could borrow from the library. I later started reading fewer fiction books and more fanfiction - easily reading 100K, 200K words a night. (For reference, Fellowship of the Ring is around 177k words.) I don’t read much fanfic anymore, and far too many of the books I own still need to be read, but I’ve realised I’m still a voracious reader. I’m just doing most of my reading online.
I subscribe to a lot of newsletters (*waves at Substack*). I read a lot of news articles and online essays. I’m subscribed to things like Today in Tabs and Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends, which give plenty of reading recommendations. And most of the books I’ve read recently have been hard-to-find graphic novels and scripts made available through my Scribd account.
There’s a lot of reasons for this. We’re in a cost of living crisis and books, even e-books, are expensive. I spend a lot of time on my phone anyway, and have managed to make it so I feel like I’m putting things of value into my brain instead of a dying Twitter doom loop. A lot of the books I do want to read are hard to find outside of that cursed River website. And a lot of my favourite subversive shit is free/more easily available online anyway because fuck the system! Go read Stone Butch Blues!
I’ve stopped caring about whatever counts as “real reading” a long time ago. I love books, I love an indie bookshop, I love the smell of old books - and I like that in my hand I can read up on things like the history of hibachi, Atari sales and stone skipping.
What am I reading? Don’t look at my bookshelf. Look at my bookmarks, my infinite open tabs, the emails I’ve starred. It’s all reading, baby! Long live the written word.
Here are some of my favourite (free) online reads that still definitely count as reading:
Queers in Love at the End of the World , by Anna Anthropy
(if you don’t think this gamified poem counts as reading, you’re a narc)
On Falling in Love with David, by Soraya Palmer
This is from 2017 and it’s still one of my favourite essays. And Soraya Palmer just put out a novel this year, so this was a good time to return to this.
Everyone should read Mona Eltahawy.
This is the gamer representation I need.
And lastly:
Dick Pig, by Ian Muneshwar
For those of us who support gay rights and gay wrongs.
Thanks for reading! Have a treat (Pride Month edition!):
Also, because I love the Pride Month/ PriDEMONth /meme:
Support a queer trans artist and buy your pride demon shirt!