1) Rosemary Hennessy’s Profit and Pleasure: I borrowed this book last summer when I was determined to read more queer theory. I made notes on the first few pages and proceeded to never touch it again, which is a shame because I posted pictures of the book on my snapchat and my Instagram.
2) Maggie Nelson’s Agronauts: Borrowed this because I couldn’t find Bluets in the library. I really, really planned to read it but never got around to it and returned it without ever opening the book.
3) bell hooks’ All About Love: Have I read this book? No. Does that stop me from referencing this book specifically during fights with my boyfriend? No. Would bell hooks be proud of me? Probably not.
4)Shiraz Maher’s Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea: I looked up a bunch of theory on US intervention in the Middle East and radicalism and stumbled upon this; I borrowed it from the library and haven’t touched it since.
5) Vijay Prashad’s The Poorest Nations: A Possible History of the Global South: I read 80 pages from this for my History of Neoliberalism class and bought it a year later only to never read it again. Shame.
6) Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry: I read Babel’s The Story of My Dovecot for class, which moved me to tears. The first three stories of this collection did not have the same effect and I never finished it.
7) Something by Anton Chekhov: I bought this on the recommendation of an author who described Chekhov as the master of the short story. I can’t remember the name of the story or the collection. I do remember reading a story about a man who got married to a woman too early and was unhappy in his marriage (shocker!) and that’s about it.
8) Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady: I still remember the story behind this purchase. I loved taking exams I didn’t need to take in high school so I had registered independently to take A-level law and history exams; somewhere, in the preparation process, I got bored of studying and started compiling a list of everything I wanted to read after the exam. This book was not on the list but I had read an extract from it for something else and it was on sale so I ended up buying it. I think I read maybe 10 pages before giving up because Henry James bored me to death.
9) Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: I cheated and skipped to the end after reading 100 pages but I still can’t tell you what this was about.
10) Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman: I started reading this book in high school when my reading list involved a lot of philosophy, Ayn Rand (I was that person) and second-wave feminist texts. I first heard of Atwood’s book through someone’s review of it wherein they discussed her literary technique of switching from first-person to third-person point of view to emphasize the protagonist’s disconnection with her and her disillusionment as she discovered that the only way she could achieve mobility was through marriage. I never finished reading the book in its entirety because I got bored around page 100 and skipped to end but I wish I finished reading the text since I posted a picture of it on Instagram and recommend it to people all the time.
