Back in January I set a goal for myself: I wanted to experience a greater variety of media. I resolved to watch 10 films, and 10 television shows, while also reading 10 books. My hope was that this would make me better at writing. The through line in my thinking was that by experiencing a broader range of things, I’d gain a better appreciation for how to think about, and digest my experiences. This would, in theory, make it easier to share them. Plus, reading the written work of others tends to have a knock on effect of making you better at writing in the same way that playing a strong opponent in a pvp game can help you to improve at said game.

Was this line of thinking dumb? I dunno. Maybe? If nothing else, I hoped to ease the stagnation that I felt in my day to day life. I was getting listless. Every day felt like it was bleeding into the next.

For a while I’d even managed to write about the last several things I’d experienced as part of this journey. That didn’t last however. I found the posts absolutely grueling to write, and edit. It’s already hard enough to tie things together into a somewhat cohesive blob when you’re only covering a single topic across several games. Trying to organize several unrelated bodies of written text about a variety of different stories was…well it wasn’t easy. Plus, the sheer volume of stuff I would have to say meant those posts frequently waltzed into the 1500 to 2000 word count territory. This ultimately meant they took way longer to pick apart, and piece back together compared to the much slimmer 700 to 1000 word posts that normally grace my blog.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about books. As the title of this post may have already clued you in, I’ve not made a lot of progress on the reading front of this self imposed challenge. I’ve blown past my original goal for films closing in on 2 dozen now, and I’m almost at 10 television shows. For books read…well I’m at 3. And I don’t even know if I want to count 2 of them because one was a comic, and the other was a play. Though the latter was Oedipus Rex. My buddy from Denmark sent me a handful of different things to read, and Oedipus Rex was the only one I got stuck into. In fact, I finished the entire book in one sitting. It was very good.

That complete lack of progress on the reading front isn’t for a lack of trying either. I’ve read almost 10 different books this year. I just never get past the first dozen pages of what I’m reading. It feels like when you start playing a game you don’t gel with, and put it down shortly after finishing the tutorial. There’s just nothing anchoring me to these stories, so when I get bored I stop reading them.

It doesn’t help that I still don’t really know what I want to read. I understand now why some people say that they don’t know where to get started with video games. I’m experiencing the same problem with reading: there are so many options that I can’t figure out where to start. So far everything I’ve done has felt like random flailing in the dark.

Regardless, I am nothing if not stubborn. After watching the Barbie movie this past weekend with Mir, I asked if she wanted to stop by the nearby Indigo. I was determined to find something to read, even if I had no idea where to start. Plus, Mir loves reading, so she was just happy to go into the bookstore.

Side tangent – Indigo is the only major bookstore in Canada. There used to be 2 others called Coles, and Chapters. Indigo bought both of them out over a decade ago. However, Indigo also retained most of the same store locations, at least in my city, so I still sometimes erroneously refer to them as Chapters. Ya know – cause they were Chapters for half my life. I’m only telling you this so that when I inevitably miss correcting a Chapters into Indigo while editing this you aren’t totally lost.

Thank you for indulging that needlessly long interruption.

Anyway, Mir and I walked into Indigo, and I was, once again, hit with that aimless flailing feeling. There are a mountain of books all over the store (obviously), and I don’t even know where to start. Luckily, Mir is the best, and was determined to help me find something. She took the lead, and began dragging me around the Chapters while trying to suss out a story that I’d be interested in reading.

After several minutes of following her around the store like a lost child, Mir placed a book in my hands. The title read Psyche and Eros. Oh! I know these names. This is Greek mythology! I like Greek mythology. That’s exactly what Mir was banking on. She told me to flip to a random spot in the book, and read a few pages. So I did that, while she wandered off to continue perusing the field of other books on offer throughout Indigo.

5 minutes later, Mir came back to retrieve me, and found I was still reading. A welcome surprise to be sure. She then confiscated Psyche and Eros from me, informing me that was what I was looking for. The feeling where you start reading, and you stop paying attention to time. The same feeling I get while playing Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter. All I had to do was start pulling stuff off the shelf, flip to a random spot, and start reading. When I had a similar experience to Psyche and Eros, we’d add the book to the pile.

I think we spent another 30, or 40 minutes mulling around Indigo, and left with 2 new books each. I’m also happy to report that Psyche and Eros wasn’t a fluke. I’ve spent more time reading this past week than I have playing games, and I’m a sizeable way through the story. It has felt great getting stuck into a story in the same way I would a good game. In fact, I think I’ve enjoyed this more than I have the majority of the movies, or shows that I’ve watched. Perhaps it was always about finding the right thing to read all along.