What I Want to Read

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.