A Unified Theory of Chaotic Reading

Or, What I do here

Since starting this newsletter over a year ago, I have been spreading the good news of chaotic reading here on Substack. And since we’ve recently hit 200 subscribers here, (hi! hello! how are you? Thank you for being here!) I figured I’d explain a bit more about my namesake.

First of all, I made it up. Shocking, I know. But, the name comes born from my attempt at branding. I like talking about books, but I am kind of hard to pin down. I don’t say this under the delusional guise that I am unknowable and oh-so-mysterious. I say this because I have, and have always had, a myriad of interests.

Examples:

• I majored in Political Science and French in college. While there, I started out as a math major, and took enough courses in Econ and History that I could have minored in either if I so chose. I work in tech, and have a MFA in Creative Writing.

• My favorite films as a child were Balto and Anastasia,¹ and my favorite book was one called Bat 6. Sum told, my childhood favorites amounted to: a historical retelling of a diphtheria outbreak featuring talking animals, a historical fantasy remake of the fall of the Russian Romanovs, and a book about 6th graders playing softball in the wake of World War II. These Venn Diagrams do not overlap other than in the ‘Things I Liked’ category.

• What I write on this here blog. I hop around from Artist Interviews (remember those?),² lists, writing advice, book adjacent topics and book reviews. I talk more about it here.

  Hello, It's Me

This isn’t to say that there’s anything wrong with having a myriad of interests, just that it’s much harder to brand something when your brand is no brand.

Why care about a brand, anyways? Well, have you heard of an elevator pitch? Every writer hates the question ‘what’s your book about?’ because you have to succinctly explain your book in under 30 seconds. This isn’t a bad thing; we all have limited time and being able to explain your book concisely helps draw attention to it.

Same thing here on Substack.

I consume a lot of book related content - Substacks, YouTube channels, Instagram pages. And many of them have a theme or guiding premise, namely a genre they specialize in. I couldn’t commit to that.

Why?

As I said myself on my very first post here:

So, why The Chaotic Reader? I align towards the Neutral Good side of things on most days, but I have an impish streak that once activated, cannot be suppressed.

If I even make a list of what I plan on reading for the month, I will invariably stray from it because my brain has decided it needs a challenge and can’t be told what to do.

That isn’t to say I don’t have interests and preferences, just that I can never tell where the wind will take me.

So without further ado…

What is Chaotic Reading?

Chaotic Reading is reading across so many genres that your end of the year graphs on Storygraph look like a Jackson Pollock painting of colors.

Chaotic Reading is not limiting yourself to one genre. Read non-fiction, read fiction, read poetry, read history. Read it all.

Chaotic Readings is acknowledging you’re a busybody who wants to know what’s going on in all different realms of the publishing and literature industries.

Chaotic Reading is reading very niche French books that most French people don’t even read. Even more Chaotic Reading is deciding to read all of Marguerite Duras’s oeuvres just because you’ve already read too many and are in too deep now to stop.

Chaotic Reading is mood reading. Reading what you want, when you want, book reviews, major awards and others’ recommendations be damned.

Chaotic Reading is taking all of this information, synthesizing it into your overactive brain, and then looking for the connections and patterns wherever you see them.

Chaotic Reading is using what you’ve learned from all different literary genres to inform your understanding of the world around you.

Chaotic Reading is whatever is going on right here:

Chaotic Reading is having a TBR that’s 10 years long, because you want to read everything.

Chaotic Reading, while joyful, is at its heart a little frustrating because it would be great to stick to one thing, but that would be too easy now, wouldn’t it?

Chaotic Reading is being told to read one thing, then stomping your foot and going to read the exact opposite just because you can.

Chaotic Reading is reading YA, 20th century classics, French language, SFF, literary fiction, poetry, graphic novels and comics all within one year.

Chaotic Reading is having a sense of humor about the whole thing because if you’re not laughing you’re crying.

What does this mean for you, my dear readers?

That may sound a little overwhelming, and I don’t blame you. By this point, I have settled into what works and what doesn’t work for me here. I do reserve the right to change my mind, but I don’t think anything will change here any time soon.³

It doesn’t mean that posts will be chaotic. No, I want to make sure I’m getting my argument across, and that involves clear analysis and some level of rigor in editing. But I might have an idea and change it. I might plan out a month in advance and then find something more interesting. I might read a book and get really angry at it and need to share. But think of the posts in this newsletter like planets orbiting a sun: while they may all be different and have their own ecosystems, they are all connected by the same center, Chaotic Reading.

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No New Books™️ Challenge

I’ve been so good! I haven’t bought any new books, and I went to a very bookish event last week AND a bookstore with a friend on Saturday.

Just to shout out some lovely local ladies, my friend Emily Homonoff and her mom Robin Kall host The Cardigan Connection here in Rhode Island, and last week they relaunched the series with authors Vanessa Lillie (Blood Sisters), Melissa Mogollon (Oye), Sarah Seltzer (The Singer Sisters), and Essie Chambers (Swift River.) All of the authors read from their books, and the books were all on sale after the event and I didn’t. Buy. Any!! Please clap for me because I really wanted to. I took no picture because I was trying to be present (but was also very cold.) So instead, here’s some of Emily’s video from the night

emilyhomonoff

A post shared by @emilyhomonoff

• Streak to Beat: 50 days (January 1st - February 19th)

• Last streak: 37 days (September 18th - October 24th)

• Current streak: 10 days (December 1st - Present)

Mug Moment of the Week

We’re into Christmas mug season and here’s…another Christmas adjacent mug. This one is a mug I got from a Farmer’s Market earlier this year. It’s more winter themed, to be fair, and is special in that it has no handle. Just a thumb indent on the other side, which I have done a great job at capturing.

I also couldn’t remember if I had already featured this mug or not, so just in case I have and forgot, here’s an actual Christmas mug. It’s the Christmas version of the black and white London mug I featured some time ago. Once again, an older version of the Starbucks Been There mugs. I discovered while taking this photo that it’s REAL hard to capture the Christmas elements, but they’re there I promise.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, tell me in the comments - what’s your most chaotic reading habit? I’m dying to know.

1. Highly ironic given my Father’s love of Disney. Not that I hated Disney films, those were just the two I remembered as favorites. My first favorite song came from Anastasia (it’s the song sung during the credits.)

2. I am shading myself and fully aware of it.

3. Now that I’ve said that, I have just cursed myself with some major life upheaval that means I will have to overhaul this newsletter.