33: The number of books on my "currently reading" pile

In 2018, I read one book all the way through. The Essex Serpent. I finished it on the last day of December while I was having a pre-NYE-night-out bath, and on New Year's Day I re-ignited my Goodreads account and set what seemed to me an impossible target: 25 books read by December 31st 2019. By Craig David's televised NYE 2019 BBC concert at 11pm (why did that happen, again?) I'd read 30 books. I loved reading when I was little. I often had three books under my pillow, and would sometimes read two at a time, skipping from one to the other like an impatient channel-skipper. I wasn't a loner, but I liked to read a lot, and rather than set me apart from the other kids, we shared our favourite books. Ever the Monica even at the age of six or seven, I suggested we write our own book reviews and stories to bring to our playtimes together. It never took off (why would it? I was essentially creating my own zine sweatshop when we could've all been doing cartwheels), but the idea that I could write my own stories as well as read them was exhilarating to me. My teacher at the time told me I had an excellent expressive reading voice. "You could make reading tapes for the library," she said. This has stayed with me forever. It's a nice thought, but why didn't "you could be a broadcaster, or an actor, or an author!" come out of her mouth? I think about that a lot.I stopped reading at some point during my teens. I lost interest in keeping track of plots, and the larger my educational and personal workloads got, the less time I had to force myself to sit down and engage with a book. It was far, far easier to let entertainment flash before my eyes passively. I watched the same DVDs over and over. I still do that, by the way. It's just Netflix now instead of The Nightmare Before Christmas being started from the beginning on a DVD player that sounds like a chilling unit.For a long time after that, I thought I hated reading. Or maybe I did actually hate reading. But I still loved writing. The dissonance between those two things was loud, and there were so many ways I knew I could improve my style and create more sophisticated worlds if only I picked up a book again. In response to this career-driven need to read, I only read classics. I didn't enjoy myself with them most of the time. I missed their nuances and humour in pursuit of what they could teach me about the craft of writing. In the end, it took a gothic novel about a woman set free by the death of her cruel husband to discover fossils and monsters in the mud and Pagan hinterlands to remind me that books aren't just for reference. They can make you feel things too. They can take a flint to the long-burned out fire of your imagination and set it alight again. I didn't hate reading. I'd just been choosing the wrong words to read. And that's what I'd say to Sarah Perry if I ever saw her.Other stuff

• I read this piece by poet Jack Underwood as soon as I woke up today and it felt like a bolt of lightning hit me.

• Beth McColl has written a piece for GBH that manages to give a totally unique depiction of depression, while simultaneously making me feel like I share with her the memories she's dredging up from the deep.

• If you love a big, wacky investigative journalism piece full of twists and turns and scams, read this on AirBnB in London. And then maybe reconsider using AirBnBs.

• Don't you just love great packaging?

• Italicising non-English words. Why do we do it? "What is the actual measure for whether a word belongs to a language?" asks Khairani Barokka, and honestly, it's been playing on my mind ever since.

• Jeanne Calment was the oldest woman who ever lived, and she died aged 122 in 1997 having lived her whole life in Arles, France. But there are men out there intent on revealing her whole life as a conspiracy. Was she really who she said she was? Could her DNA reveal the secret to everlasting life? This longread is immense but totally worth it (and you can listen to it using the link if you prefer.)

• Please look at this hashtag -- #bookillustrationofthedaybirthday2 -- it's full of gorgeous book illustrations and you'll be scrolling through it for hours.

• Some activism for you: if you like walking in the countryside in England and Wales, join this campaign to identify 10,000 miles of historic footpaths before they get wiped from the new record in 2026.

• Lose yourself in In Dreams, a hugely ambitious project from Soleil Ho and Mel Tow for the SF Chronicle. A different way to create an immersive restaurant review.

• How greetings cards are surviving the digital age.

• Speaking of Soleil, I absolutely LOVE this piece from her about working as a critic with a bad memory, and how it's helped her forge her own unique style.

• Brit Marling is just... a hero. And her article for the NYT "I Don't Want To Be The Strong Female Lead" skewers the prospects of women in the film industry perfectly.

• A captivating profile and history of Berthe Weill and her historic and important career. Who's that? Exactly. She was an art dealer in turn of the century Paris who championed then-burgeoning artists like Braque, Matisse, Picasso, Suzanne Valadon, Modigliani and Derain. And she's largely never spoken about. So read this.

My Stuff

• This week my piece on being part of the grape harvest at Trossenwein in Mosel was published on Pellicle. I hope you like it. I very vividly remember sitting on my bed at Rudi and Rita's house after a day's picking, finishing a Gulp newsletter before teatime. When I went downstairs for tea everyone congratulated me for getting my "work" done and we drank federweisser.

• I've started a bookstagram account to keep track of my book reviews (and keep them away from my main). You can follow it here if you're interested.

25th anniversary of Galerie Berthe Weill, 1926. © Centre Georges Pompidou.Courtesy of Marianne Le Morvan.