My Year In Books

"One writer I admire had said in an interview that time is precious and he had to choose between reading and writing. He had already read so much that it was time for words to flow in the opposite direction. He wasn’t reading much.

That resonated with me, and I started writing and writing. Then recently, I’d been feeling low on fuel. I listened to a young and highly successful novelist whom I admire. In her country she, like me, is the child of an immigrant. Her second-generation vision of the immigrant experience and multiculturalism was like oxygen. Just like me, she wrote the way her people speak: long sentences, long paragraphs, digressions, and lots of italics. Everything today’s editors hate. In the interview, however, I was disappointed by her political opinions. They were more emotional than analytical. The idealism was cloying even when I agreed with her. Once again, I encountered a writer who had been granted authority to opine on a subject for which she hadn’t come prepared with much more than conviction. But then she slapped me in the face: If a writer is not reading, their writing will not be up to par.

In 2025, I accepted her challenge and returned to reading—a lot. Serendipitously, the words entered me, becoming a part of me, helping me to express the inland sea.

read about Ricky Toledano 's year in books

My Year In Books – ā•multiplicity