According to my Goodreads profile, I’ve read 16 books since 2017. That’s roughly five books a year, and I’m damn proud of this achievement. It represents significant growth for me. Between 2009 and 2016, I distinctly remember reading just two books: Tar Baby by Toni Morrison and Black Boy by Richard Wright. Luckily, the decision to leave my corporate job in 2016 (just before my 30th birthday) spearheaded disruption beyond the professional. I began to deeply internalize one truth among many: life requires intention. Luck is often a consequence of the intentions we set, and I lacked the habit of deliberately reading books intentionally and consistently. This minimized the serendipitous learnings that could have expanded my worldview and positively altered my life’s course.
What transformative gems of knowledge were waiting for me in the middle of unread pages? I desired to find out.
The decision to read more books undeniably changed my life. I applied for my passport after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me; I began a semi-regular meditation practice after reading Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace by Angel Kyodo Williams; I accelerated my intention to fully address my lingering student loan debt after reading The Courage to be Rich by Suze Orman (and I am now debt-free); I confronted childhood trauma in life-shifting ways after reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.
The life I want is in my head, but the life I have in the here and now is shaped in large part by what I do. Reading is now a part of what I do, and it will continue to be for the rest of my life.
Though I’m currently working on speeding up the process, completing a single book still takes me more than one month. When I’m done, I typically like to commemorate the book by taking a photograph of it against a styled backdrop and writing a reflection about it, then sharing both on Instagram. Some of my friends gently make fun of me for doing this, but it’s just what I like to do :)
Here are three books that I’ve read in the last few years, collected from my Instagram profile for the purposes of reinvigorating my intention to keep my personal website—this website I spent so much time creating—alive.
Review 1: Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith
The life experiences of this Pulitzer Prize-winning, former U.S. Poet Laureate were refreshing to read. Many aspects of her journey even mirrored my own: The Christian upbringing, being the youngest in a large family, finding solace in books. I appreciated the weight and sacredness she gave her story, one that felt distinctly Black, American, and middle-class.
Of course, everyone’s story has parts of it that are heartbreaking and bittersweet. For Tracy, it is primarily the death of her mother, which frames the beginning of her memoir and is, indeed, a guiding light throughout. With careful nuance, Tracy shares the way she gleaned from, responded to, and, at times, rebelled against her mother’s gracious yet pious presence. The relationship is beautifully told, and Tracy’s writing is warm and tender, making this a recommended read ❤️.
Review 2: White Noise by Don DeLillo
Dylar. Nyodene D. Toxic clouds. Consumerism. Talk radio. Blood on bathroom tiles. Chaos. White Noise by Don DeLillo is a masterpiece—absolutely one of the best, most fascinating works of fiction I've ever read. I can be a bit overdramatic (I feel emotions very deeply), but I really do think it's fundamentally changed my approach to the English language. While reading it, I noticed myself altering the cadence of text messages and emails, feeling more liberated to ponder on the seemingly mundane, finding spiritual awakenings in grocery store aisles.
How can I describe this book? It's sort of a critical analysis of the hyper-consumption of 1980s America (the book was released in 1985) in the form of a norm-core performance art piece that's extremely funny at times, poignant and unsettling at others. It speaks to today's social media age with incredible prescience, echoing the environmental and political doomsday rhetoric that has somehow become our new normal.
With extraordinary brilliance, DeLillo weaves complex characters and themes into a unique blend of identities that is so close to fantastical without ever crossing the line. Everything feels within reach, perhaps improbable sometimes but not impossible. At our root, below the layers of stuff we accumulate, humans are animals with one separating quality: We are aware of, and can ponder on, our mortality. That's one takeaway of many I gleaned from this gem of a book.
Read it. Meet Jack, Babette, Heinrich, Wilder, Steffi, Denise, Murray—characters with their own idiosyncrasies (all of whom, I think, are impacted by the trauma of overconsumption—but that's just my theory). TW: There are references to Hitler and murder in it. Still, as a profound, creative body of work, I rate it 11/10.
Review 3: Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace by Angel Kyodo Williams
Do your daily actions reflect the divine purpose felt in your heart? After reading Angel Kyodo Williams' Being Black, I’ve challenged myself with this question more and more. Like so many others, I surrender to the dictates of my thoughts every day. These thoughts are informed by a lifetime of accumulated experiences. Regardless of how good or bad they were, these experiences are still in the recesses of my brain, acting as a compass and instruction manual for the ways I build my life and navigate in the world. With seven to ten minutes a day, meditation is introducing more agency in my relationship with this internal compass. Being Black presented the invitation for this to occur.
Its pages pushed long-avoided challenges of mine to the forefront: To acknowledge, appreciate, and wholeheartedly be in the moment; to feel thoughts as they surface to the top and watch them dissipate with each exhalation of the breath. It was refreshing to internalize these concepts from a book that centers the black experience, in particular, in this process. Kyodo acknowledges the validity in our anger with living in a country that has yet to atone for its racial sins—but anger that festers is toxic to the one who holds it. As an alternative, she invites us to transform that anger into action, anchoring our breath and being to compassion, love, and knowledge. For me, her message is a clarion call to the purpose I feel deeply. It has caused me to pause and check in whenever I feel myself submerging under bitterness, anger, or sadness. I do not have to be defined by my experiences or bad habits. Instead, I can choose to be present, untethered to anything but the moment. With every breath, I tell each cell in my body this truth. Daily, in small ways, I see my world shifting as a result.