On Collecting Books
Tips on growing your To Be Read pile and snapshots of your personal TBR stacks
Out of all the Disney princesses I watched as a child, Belle was the one I was the least interested in. First, she was a commoner. I didn’t like her house. She hung out with the village sheep. She was obsessed with books the way Elizabeth Taylor was obsessed with diamonds and precious gemstones. She wanted adventure in the great wide somewhere, and I was too young to realize that there was a great wide somewhere other than my bungalow in suburban Gatineau, Québec.
The only thing we had in common was that she spoke French, if you consider singing “Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour! Bonjour!” speaking French, and that she called her father Papa. Sure, I was a commoner too. I appreciated books, but they weren’t by any means an obsession. I preferred my Barbies and practising on-demand crying in the mirror.
How times have changed. I’m no longer interested in being a princess. I’ve been exploring the great wide elsewhere, and these days it’s with crows in a west London graveyard. And I really love books the way Elizabeth Taylor loved jewels, and I’m sure I’d really love jewels too if I were a successful actress and perfume empire mogul.
The other day I went to the bookstore in search of a cookbook. I needed dinner inspiration because my family had been eating a lot of tofu scramble, toasted egg sandwiches and the same bean stew over and over again. I was in a rut! I needed motivation! A new cookbook will help me reconnect with the joy of cooking, I thought.
Did I leave the bookstore with newfound meal inspiration? No. That’s because I stayed in the non-fiction section and bought How to Be A Renaissance Woman by Jill Burke instead. It felt much more pressing to learn about “The Untold History of Beauty & Female Creativity” from 500 years ago than to learn how to make a creamy black bean, harissa and almond butter stew.
It didn’t matter that I hadn’t finished reading Rouge by Mona Awad yet. Or that I’d just ordered Splinters: A Memoir by Leslie Jamieson and 1000 WORDS: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg.
Or that I hadn’t dived into the books I received as Christmas gifts last December, Death Valley by Melissa Broder and The Creative Act by Rick Ruben yet.
And what about Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino I bought in Montreal last summer? The books keep piling on and there’s no end to the stack in sight.
The To Be Read pile. There’s something so exciting about it. It grows faster than I can work my way through it, yet nothing about the TBR pile feels particularly stressful. The TBR pile is there, quietly towering in a corner of my bedroom, waiting. It feels like a pillar, a support system, something I can turn to when I yearn for connection, emotion, recognition, beauty, entertainment, knowledge.
Also? I never feel guilty about spending money on books. I’m supporting someone’s art and hard work while investing in myself. It’s a win-win.
A couple of summers ago, I was bedridden with Covid. I felt awful. I couldn’t bear to look at a screen. My bones hurt. In between my bouts of fever, I turned to a book that had been in my TBR pile for a year. It was Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. I devoured it—it sustained me even though I could barely eat. It was such a trip of a novel, and it had nothing to do with my fever. The story of a stay-at-home mom who turned into a dog and yearned to make art again was something I deeply related to, and the recognition and connection I felt while reading it felt like a lifeline during the pandemic. TBR piles can breathe life into you again. Their contents find you when you most need them.
Don’t have a TBR pile? No problem. Just follow my tips on growing your personal book collection. I even made a schema on the family iPad to illustrate how easy it is.
Your Personal TBR Piles
Last week, I asked you to send me a picture of your TBR piles, and you delivered! Thank you so much for writing to me and sharing your book obsessions. I loved seeing the titles in your collections, and I wouldn’t be surprised if your entries gave fellow Obsessed readers some reading inspiration for the long weekend ahead.
Thank you so much for sharing your TBR piles. It was so fun to exchange with you. That’s it for this week. I wish you well, I wish you a relaxing weekend, and I’ll see you in your inboxes soon.
Michelle