I want to read something fun.
I want to read something nigh-incomprehensible.
Or something surreal and sickly sardonic. Something Gutter Operatic.
I want to read every book I own that I haven’t read yet, mostly to assuage my guilt.
I want to read a novel composed entirely of metaphors stupider than my penis.
I want to read your next novel.
I want to read a novel that’s strictly social media updates about the world’s end.
I want to read a novel narrated by a fearsome chinchilla.
I want to read a novel by George Saunders.
I want to read that harlequin romance Lynn Cheney penned.
I want to read a novel composed entirely of the letter “e.”
I want to read a novel that’s 10,000 blank pages. It will be the longest novel I have ever read.
I want to read the sequel to Repo Shark.
I want to read the novel that Dashiell Hammett did not write between 1935 and his death in 1961.
I want to read Mary Gaitskill’s next novel.
I want to read the books boorish high school administrators seek to ban, screaming, “But think of the children!” Another way to say this is I want to read books that don’t think of the children.
I want to read more novels published in 1976.
I want to read the next Claire DeWitt mystery.
I want either cosmic forces or a divine being or cheerful djinn to grant me an additional ten hours every day during which time the only thing I am permitted to do is read.
I want to read the novels that people say have changed their lives, so my life can be changed too.
I want to learn Russian so I can tackle Pushkin in the original and become more intimately involved with the intricacies of samovars.
I want read to Henry James instead of merely admiring him.
I want to read more Agatha Christie!
I want to read another Teju Cole twitter-essay.
I want to read the poems Stalin’s goons shredded like utopian dreams.
I want to read a short story that’s got no chance in hell of getting published in The New Yorker.
I want to make a distinction or rather reject one. Sometimes people differentiate between reading and reading for pleasure. To me it’s all the same soup.
I want to read all that German philosophy. But only if said philosophy gets restructured to better resemble a well-plotted whodunit.
I want to read everything Two Dollar Radio has published.
I want to read more Valeria Luiselli.
I don’t want to read any more emails unless said emails are at least approximately 40,000 words long and contain a decent narrative arc.
I want you to text me a bit of flash fiction. Seriously. (585) 705-7908.
I want to spend all Sunday reading.
Sometimes people ask me, “What are you up to tonight?” I wish I could always reply, “Reading.”
I want to call in sick tomorrow and read The Jane Austen Rules, which I promised Brian Hurley I’d write a review for.
I want to read all of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling in a single sitting.
I want to read something silly.
I want to reread Brian Jacques’s Redwall series, mostly because these were my and Katharine’s favorites book when we were eight.
I want to reread A Wrinkle in Time too.
I want to read dense non-fiction exploring important topics I don’t know very much about, which is pretty much everything.
I want to read love poetry.
I want to read too much into every passing moment.
I want to read whatever Katharine is currently reading so we can Skype about it!
I want to read more joke one-liners.
I want to one day own a house or decent-sized condo and in this home have a chair that is known as the “Reading Chair,” and the only thing that one is allowed to do while seated in said chair is read. (Of course.)
I want to read something zany.
I want to read something honest.
I want to read the stories of those who brave enough to speak truth to power.
I want to hire Nabokov’s ghost to write descriptions of the everyday objects that surround me and then have these descriptions read to me.
I want to read something that at first I adamantly disagree with but later on agree with, at least a little bit.
I want to read memoirs of resistance.
I want to read that justice still matters.
I want to proofread the next draft of the novel I’m working on.
I want to read tales of your success.
I want to read a book review composed entirely of thought fragment.
I want to read whatever it is that will change our lives.