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I started a list of books to read and it grew to over 500. I felt trapped by it, and when it got lost, I felt free again.

Feb 25, 2024, 19:48 IST
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Lisa Bubert started a book list in 2013 that grew to over 500 books.Getty Images
  • In 2013, I started a list of over 500 books that I wanted to read.
  • Before long, I only let myself read books from the list and felt trapped by it.
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In 2013, I made a seemingly simple decision: I started a list of books I wanted to read. I had just finished my final semester of graduate school, had my first full-time job, and was getting married — I was finally going to enter the echelon of adulthood.

So when I, a person in my 20s with a wealth of time on my hands because I was no longer scrambling between graduate school and three part-time jobs, stumbled across a listicle of 50 books every young adult should read in their 20s, I opened a spreadsheet in Google Docs and added all 50 to the list. This was a mistake.

I have always been a completist to a fault. If I pick up a book and begin reading, I will finish that book, regardless of whether I like it or not. If I start a TV show, I will watch every episode in every season before starting something new. (I watched eight seasons of "Below Deck" religiously, unsettling my husband over my dedication to the task, until free Peacock access disappeared on my TV. I've since learned to choose my TV shows very carefully.)

I'm a librarian and feel like I have to read everything

I can't choose books the same way. I am a writer, but I am also a librarian. Reading is my literal job. I have to keep up with trends so I can see how my writing can enter the conversation; I need to know about all the new books so I can make apt recommendations to my patrons.

Though my demurely-titled "Reading List" started with those 50 books I just had to read in my 20s, it soon ballooned to include award-winners from each new year, collections from "Best Of" lists, and occasionally, a book that I might actually like to read. Ten years later, the list had grown to include over 500 titles, and I had become strangely bound to it, only allowing myself to read titles from the list (and occasionally sneaking new things on that I desperately wanted to read just to follow my own arbitrary rules).

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Intellectually, I understood that this was madness. But by then, I had moved away from my family into a new city in a new state. I found our country to be a monumental disappointment in more ways than one. A pandemic had begun, and made time contract and expand in unexplainable ways. We were already living in madness, so what was so wrong about me escaping into the madness of believing I would ever reach the end of this list?

The list was a comfort. I didn't have to decide what to do next — in some ways, having a list felt like a way of maintaining a sense of order. I could go down it, one by one, filling my creative mind with all the recommended reads of the last 10 years. I kept track on my Goodreads account, attempting to complete a challenge of reading 100 books a year (a number I never actually met that made me feel like a woeful failure come each December).

I learned my habits might be due to OCD

I have seen a handful of therapists about my habit of completion. One said I likely had a mild form of OCD, another considered it a childish habit I would eventually grow out of (I'm 36), and the last agreed that it was likely OCD mixed with ADHD mixed with anxiety and was likely an acquired form of self-soothing in a world that is unpredictable, uncertain, and possibly doomed. Yes, she agreed with me that the world was possibly doomed. This is how I knew she was the therapist for me.

"How do you choose what to read next?" she asked.

"I just go down the list."

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"Okay," she said. "What would happen if you just threw away the list?"

"Oh," I said. "I can't do that."

I couldn't do that because if I threw away the book list, I would have to make a conscious choice. Making a conscious choice would require being confronted by the reality of life. And the current reality of life was terrifying and full of things I couldn't control, and more questions I didn't want to consider — did I want to have children? Did I like my work? Was I actually satisfied with the shape of my days? I'd spent the last 10 years reading, but did I actually remember what I'd read? In most instances, no.

I turned 36 this year. I've come to an unsettling conclusion that I might now be in the back half of my life, and I, terrifyingly, don't remember the majority of what I've read because the point wasn't in the experience, the point was in the completion. Two years ago, I successfully swore off social media doomscrolling and was so darn proud of myself for it. Turns out, I transferred all that doomscrolling into my creative life, dissociating now with my books.

When I lost my book list, I actually felt free

Two months ago, I reorganized my cloud account where the list was kept. I don't know what happened, but the list got lost in the shuffle. I tried to restore it, searched all the trash cans, hit the undo button — but it was gone.

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Strangely, I did not panic like I thought I would. Ever since my therapist had introduced the idea of throwing the list away, I had fantasized about the moment but never actually committed to it. Now, regardless of how it had happened, the moment was here. The list was dead. And with it, I was free.

In a testament to my therapist's prowess, I paused. I didn't read anything for several days. Finally, I went to a bookstore. I browsed the aisles and let myself be drawn in by the covers. I picked up one title that looked interesting, and I allowed myself to buy it.

The loss of the book list proved to be a harbinger of things to come; I returned all the overdue books stacked on my nightstand back to the library without reading them first, leaving a clean, clear space of open opportunity. Quieter and quieter my days became until there I was — my own voice in my own head once again, in all her anxiety. I liked her.

I will always be a completist. Know thyself, as they say. Thus, I declare this the year of re-reading books I've loved in the past without worrying that I'm not spending my time reading something new. I will roam bookshelves again and stumble upon something that looks amazing and devour it because I want to, not because I have to.

And I, along with many others, am saying goodbye to the toxicity of Goodreads, the performance of Booktok, and the competitive urge to read quantitatively, rather than creatively. Books and stories are not simply content to be binged like a bad meal. They are our art.

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What thoughts might bubble up given the space to make decisions in the moment? What inspiration will find its way into my clear and open mind? Maybe I'll make a list.

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