In an effort to keep consuming culture within a tighter and tighter schedule, I’ve recently started to slip into the habit of vicariously living through others. Not in that way. The increase in my reading has done wonders for me in more ways than one.

 1: Escapism

 2: My wallet is thanking me. 

The ability to drop yourself into someone’s thoughts, life, art, or a even critical analysis of someone else’s biography at the drop of a hat is a beautiful thing, something I didn’t do nearly enough in my life up until the last few weeks. I’ll go through some of the notable examples that have been keeping me occupied over the last few weeks. 

This is the critical analysis of someone else’s life I mentioned. It’s a brilliant breakdown of the subject topic of Edward Said’s life through the lens of his autobiography. I don’t know how I feel about the premise of double-guessing someone’s own message, especially by an ex-student, however an interesting read. 

I need not say much about this magazine. It’s a magazine but holds itself as more of a book. Hence i included it. By far the best collection and curation of writings you can buy semi-regularly. 

A fictional book set in Persia about a poet named Omar. It’s absolutely phenomenal for someone with my interests/background, dealing with the complex interplay of notions of religion and art with grace. It was originally written in french and so I’m surprised it translated this well. By far one of my favourite books. 

I love this purely because of the confusion it causes. People grab it thinking it’s going to show the serene Japanese countryside. It doesn’t. It’s got some Yakuza in it.  

This book, I hope, I won’t be able to link. I got this in New York from the Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bookstore. A bookstore I had been following for some time. It happened to be closing down while I was in NYC and I had to get a piece, hence I didn’t even take off the price tag. The owner told me he based the store on the general english book store, I’ve been looking for 26 years and have yet to find the one he referenced. They’re all far more boring. 

Lastly, probably the weirdest purchase I made. I saw it and thought “oh that’ll be useful” and so I bought it. I haven’t finished it yet but it’s great. Really quite succinct and useful as suspected.Although I didn’t realise books signalled some sense of individuality to me. I was weirdly taken aback when I saw it plastered all over creative Twitter – “ I’ll reread this every year of my life” one creative exec said. Not sure how I feel about that considering how many books actually exist. Anyway. Those are my two cents, again.

@sugarmiwk