I’m a grateful millennial, born and raised before the onslaught of Kindles, Alexas, and streaming services. We climbed trees, rode bikes, made ourselves sick on the tire swing. I devoured books because they were there.
As an adult I’ve experienced the highs and lows of the reading life, the periods when reading comes easily, the low points when all I want to do is binge watch “The Great British Baking Show.” The past few years I’ve become more comfortable branching out and reading different types of authors and genres. I’d thought I was a decently wide reader. But the reading life of youth and post-college was unfortunately similar to my music intake: same-sounding voices who confirmed (rather than challenged) my biases. I was like many in my circle who read the writers that made us comfortable in our beliefs: the white male theologians, conservative “Biblical womanhood” apologists, demon-obsessed novelists. To veer out, to read the works of non-Christians or liberals or feminists was dangerous.
When “The Shack” appeared on the scene (a novel about a man who encounters God in the form of a black woman) Christians simultaneously loved and loathed it. Some said it helped them see God in a new way, others called it heresy, an abomination. Folks seemed to forget it was fiction. And fiction allows us freedom to explore nuance and themes and situations above and beyond the natural world (and honestly, what do we even know of the form and likeness of God? Much of who God is remains a mystery).
Reading expands and disrupts our preconceived notions of what is. It’s a practice that offers glimpses into the minds and souls of other humans, opportunities to consider their perspectives, lived experiences, and researched theses, and sit with it, mull it over, reach for another book or author to keep learning, keep thinking. In “On Reading Well,” Karen Swallow Prior writes,
“A book that requires nothing from you might offer the same diversion as that of a television sitcom, but it is unlikely to provide intellectual, aesthetic, or spiritual rewards long after the cover is closed.”
The books that enhance our comfort, teach but don’t push, affirm but don’t compel, require little of the reader. The works that stay with me, find their way into Substack posts and haunt my writings, weren’t the easily digestible ones but the difficult, controversial, brow-raising, mind-spinning titles that kept me thinking. And pushed me towards my own writing.
Reading frequently and widely is one of the best practices for becoming a better writer. I can write everyday. I can work out sentences and perfect my grammar and story-telling abilities. But I will only get so far if my source of inspiration comes only from myself.
I once talked with a sommelier who said the way to develop a good palette for wine is by drinking lots of wine. But just drinking wine isn’t enough, he said. To pick up on the notes of blackberry, kumquat, cherry, etc., requires a familiarity with these fruits. A good palette requires broad eating, drinking, continuous tasting and sampling.
This is how I’ve come to approach writing. To write well is to write often. To write well is to continuously sample the vast array of writing styles and genres, the opinions that give you hope, the hot takes that make you squirm. The more we read, the better we discern the good writing from the poor, and the richer our own writing becomes.
Annie Proulx said, “Reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” And children’s author Kathryn Lasky said, “I believe that reading widely is the best preparation for writing.” I wish I’d known this sooner, that I’d been brave enough to read widely enough to pick up on the subtle tasting notes I missed because my reading was so limited. But I know it now. I’m no longer afraid of the perspectives that make me uncomfortable. If we want to grow as writers, we have to be willing to leave our perceptions at the door, and open ourselves to the disruption of our universes.
“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” [Madeleine L’Engle]
What are you reading right now? How has reading affected and influenced your own writing? Feel free to comment, e-mail, or DM me on Instagram for further conversation.
Yes! This is what I’ve been working on for the last few years. Getting out of that echo chamber and reading widely. I’m hoping it’s making me a more curious and empathetic writer and maybe a creator of beauty.
Right now I’m reading Half a Yellow Sun by Adichie and Try Softer by Aundi Kolber and also listening to Reparations by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson.
I see that copy of Annie D! One of my favorites, I re-read "The Writing Life" recently and felt the same love for the craft I first felt a good while back when I read it in college.