Austin Kleon

It wasn’t for me

it wasn't for me then one day it turned out to be

“If a book is tedious to you, don’t read it; that book was not written for you.”
—Jorge Luis Borges

Supposedly, a young man once stopped Borges on the street and told him how disappointed he was with the writer’s latest book. “Oh, that’s okay,” Borges said. “It wasn’t written for you.”

I’m a big fan of the phrase “it wasn’t for me” when asked about books (and music and TV and movies and so forth) that I didn’t get into.

I like the phrase because it’s essentially positive: it assumes that there are books for me, but this one just wasn’t one of them. It also allows me to tell you how I felt about a book without precluding the possibility that you might like it, or making you feel stupid or put down if you did like it.

“It just wasn’t for me.” No big deal.

The wonderful thing is that “me” is always changing. Every day you’re a different you. So when you say, “It wasn’t for me,” maybe it’s not for the “me” right now—maybe it’s for the “me” in the future.

Connecting with a book is so much about being the right reader in the right place at the right time. You have to feel free to skip things, move on, and maybe even come back later.

And you have to feel free to say, “It wasn’t for me.”

How to read more

my reading desk

I read 70+ books this year, a new personal record. If you’re interested in reading more, here’s what I recommend:

  1. Throw your phone in the ocean. (Or, keep it in airplane mode.)
     
  2. Carry a book with you at all times.
     
  3. Have another book ready before you finish the one you’re reading. (Make a stack of books to-read or load up your eReader.)
     
  4. If you aren’t enjoying a book or learning from it, stop reading it immediately. (Flinging it across the room helps give closure.)
     
  5. Schedule 1 hour of non-fiction reading during the day. (Commutes, lunch breaks, and any contained period of idle time work well.)
     
  6. Go to bed 1 hour early and read fiction. (It will help you sleep.)
     
  7. Keep a reading log and share your favorite books with others. (They will send you even more books to read.)
     

I posted this list on Twitter, and tweaked it based on all the responses. It was inspired by Ryan Holiday.

If you liked this post, you’ll like my books.

Above: My reading desk, designed to resemble a library study carrel.

33 thoughts on reading

i-will-not-finish-books-i-dont-like

  1. I will make time for reading, the way I make time for meals, or brushing my teeth.
     
  2. I will make an effort to carry a book with me at all times.
     
  3. I will read whatever interests me. I will read novels. I will read poems. I will read essays. I will read short stories. I will read memoirs. I will read magazines. I will read newspapers. I will read comic books. I will read self-help. I will read street signs. I will read ads. I will read instruction manuals. I will read old love letters. Etc.
     
  4. I will read whatever the hell I feel like. No guilty pleasures.
     
  5. I will try to clear my mind of expectations before I sit down to read. I will give each book a chance.
     
  6. I will turn off my fucking phone.
     
  7. I will be a good date, but I will not let an author waste my time.
     
  8. I will not finish books I don’t like.
     
  9. I will let boredom ring like a gigantic gong.
     
  10. I will throw a book across the room.
     
  11. I will read with a pencil. I will underline. I will dog ear. I will write in the margins.
     
  12. I will massacre a book if I need to.
     
  13. I will copy down favorite passages in my own hand, to know what writing the words feels like.
     
  14. I will re-read favorite books the way I watch favorite movies and play favorite records over and over.
     
  15. I will make lists of books I want to read.
     
  16. I will take a deep breath and understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE to read everything.
     
  17. I will toss “The Canon” out the window.
     
  18. I will keep a list of books I have read. I will share this list.
     
  19. When I find a book I love, I will shout about it from whatever mountaintops I have access to.
     
  20. When I find an author I truly adore, an author who makes my gutstrings vibrate, I will read everything they have written. Then I will read everything that they read.
     
  21. If I hate a book, I will keep my mouth shut.
     
  22. I will make liberal use of the phrase, “It wasn’t for me.”
     
  23. I will ask people what they are reading. I will take notes.
     
  24. I will keep stacks of unread books at the ready.
     
  25. The minute I finish a book, I will start a new one.
     
     
  26. I will go to the library. I will go to the bookstore. I will get lost in the stacks.
     
  27. I will read bibliographies. I will let one book lead me to another.
     
  28. If I need to read for information, I will browse and skim and Google book reviews.
     
  29. As often as I can, I will read out loud to someone I care about.
     
  30. I will not lend out a book if I ever want to see it again. If a friend asks to borrow a beloved book, I will buy and mail them a copy.
     
  31. I will not harbor the delusion that being a reader makes me a superior person.
     
  32. I will not suffer under the delusion that the act of reading alone makes me a better person.
     
  33. If I don’t feel like reading, I’ll go do something else. Maybe even — gasp! — watch TV.
     

Special thanks to Alan Jacobs, who wrote my favorite book about reading, and the other sources in my “reading” tag.

Little free libraries

little free library little free library
little free library little free library

This morning I stuck copies of Show Your Work! in Little Free Libraries around my neighborhood.

What is a Little Free Library?

It’s a “take a book, return a book” gathering place where neighbors share their favorite literature and stories. In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share. You can, too!

[Read more…]

SHOPPING FOR IMAGES

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

—Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California“

This weekend I was flying home from Cleveland, looked down at my New Yorker, and had a mini-revelation:

shopping for images

Underlining. Highlighting. Circling. When we read interactively, when we “alter” texts, we’re isolating little bits of writing that speak to us. Fire our imaginations. Illuminate something.

It’s the same thing when we hyperlink: we’re pointing to something that speaks to us.

And it’s the same thing when I make a blackout poem.

When the CIA redacts a document:

redacted cia document

It’s the same practice done in the opposite spirit: they’re isolating text that speaks to no one!

LYNDA BARRY AT OBERLIN

LYNDA BARRY READING AT OBERLIN

“You two are GETTING MARRIED??? Oh man, I LOVE being married!!!”

Long story short, we took a detour on our way back home last night and ended up at a bar with Lynda Barry, Dan, and a bunch of other nice Oberlin folks, talking about marriage, writing, world-building, video games, ink sticks, George Saunders, smoking, and Skoal rings.

Lynda gave a downright marvelous talk and reading of her novel CRUDDY to a packed lecture hall at the Oberlin Science Center. “I feel like this must be the Make A Wish Foundation,” she said, admiring the audience. “I have a tumor right?”

Lynda lives in rural, southern Wisconsin. “I’m the daughter of a meat cutter and a Filipino house cleaner. Most people look at me funny when I say I’m half Filipino, but Norwegian blood will suck the color out of anything.”

There was little talk of comics, and a lot of talk about writing. For her, telling a story in images is the most important thing. “When you’re in that image state, the language takes care of itself.” She outlined a process of telling the story of your life with an image–a car, for example–focusing on that image, and then describing the world around it. I mentioned to her my ideas about worldbuilding and she said, “People ask me if my stories are autobiographical. I say, ‘my stories aren’t, but my settings are.'”

She talked about “the state of play,” and the importance of play in our creative endeavors. “I love kids, man. They can teach us so much.” She said its essential to recapture that youthful, unfettered creativity that we all possess as children. On English class: “There’s nothing wrong with taking apart stories, but for the longest time I thought that was how you put them together.” On that pesky editing monkey on the writer’s shoulder: “When did the asshole become the voice of reason?”

She’s wary of computers and a champion of drawing and writing by hand. “In the digital age…don’t lose your digits!” She said when writing her second novel, the computer was a burden, making it too easy to delete things. After ten years of working on it, she decided to start writing the novel with her Japanese brush, and it worked like magic.

Later on, I told her I worked on the computer to do my woodcut-styled comics. “Yeah, but you use a Wacom tablet,” she said, “so at least you’re still drawing.”

I mentioned to her that James Kochalka, another great cartoonist, also emphasizes the importance of play, but that his emphasis comes from his love of video games. “I don’t know about video games, man. But I trust young people. That many young people can’t be wrong.”

What else can I tell you about the woman? She spent an hour signing books and talking with her fans. She likes to sing. She can even sing with her mouth closed.

She’s one helluva gal.

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