An Ode to the Books I Probably Won't Read
but I *meant* to!
"Hey, I'm on my way home. Yeah, I just gotta swing by the library on my way..."
I am a big fan of public libraries, as a general rule. They are one of our best ideas, and as is occasionally noted online, an idea that would be shouted down as preposterous and unworkable were it proposed for the first time in 2026. I wrote my graduate architecture-school thesis some [mumbles] years ago on the enduring value of physical library spaces in an increasingly-digital age, and assisted on a system-wide survey of Cincinnati's public library spaces where we determined that even the crappiest storefront branch library is an absolutely beloved public asset.
More specifically, though, the library nearest me is a lovely space: new, bright, airy and full of amenities like study rooms, a maker space, and even a small slide.
(The slide is supposedly just for kids but if you're cool about it, no one's going to stop you.)
I like being there. That said, the vast majority of trips that I make there are as-quick-as-I-can in-and-out stops to fulfill one of the two states of obligation that I perpetually find myself to be in:
- A Book I Requested Has Just Come in, and I Have to Go Get It
- One of the Twelve Books I Already Had Out Is Due, and I Have to Go Return It
I mean well. I truly do.
I never check a book out from the library without anything but the sincerest belief that I am going to read it; I would be a monster if I thought otherwise. That said, my actual lifetime success rate is hovering somewhere around 30%; terrific if I were a Major League Baseball hitter, but shameful as a reader.
Each time I return a book that I have, in spite of my best intentions, not gotten around to reading, I am racked with guilt, knowing that I have unjustly kept it out of the hands of the next person on the request list. That person is going to read the book, and they are going to appreciate all the nuances that I am too dull to pick out. They also sleep eight hours a night, drink plenty of water and replace their furnace filter on schedule.
(I can only assume.)
Despite this state of ongoing failure, I am–I think–fairly well-read.
Years ago, I adopted a conceit of recommending a book in this newsletter every Friday, but that was really only a matter of me giving a public face to something I was already doing: reading a book about once a week.
(A brief aside on what I consider "reading": In a vacuum, I greatly prefer reading physical books over any other form of consumption. After a long day of staring at the Bad Screen at work and then looking at the Screen That Was Supposed To Be Good But Is Somehow Even Worse Than The One I'm Getting Paid To Look At, it is a gift to be able to hold a bound book in my hands, confident that the pages are going to remain unsorted by any algorithm and will not at any point ask me to Let That Sink In. That said, I have found myself also listening to audiobooks with regularity in recent years, because I can do that while I'm driving. E-readers aren't really my thing, but given that most people don't read at all, my official stance is that Any Kind of Reading Is Good. Digression over; good talk.)
The list of books I have read that's come from those Friday newsletters stretches well into the hundreds–
–but it feels still painfully small when compared to the hundreds-if-not-thousands more that I've wanted and meant to read, a small but measurable percentage of which are currently sitting on my nightstand or in my passenger seat, aging their way into a future walk of shame to the library drop-box. I am forever making note of books that sound good, books that I'll request from the library or order second-hand or buy in a fit of self-congratulatory commerce an an indie bookstore, all the while knowing deep down that I'll never get to them all.
Is everything I'm talking about here a proxy for a larger thing? No. But also: yes!
I am persistently burdened by the consciousness of things I simply do not have the time to do, a feeling that extends far beyond the dilemma of whether or not I will ever get around to reading Ron Chernow's biography of Mark Twain.
(1,200 pages? Jeez. Can you just make a hip-hop musical out of this one too?)
There are recipes I will never try, iconic albums I will never listen to, television shows and movies that I'm sure are great but will almost certainly never listen to. My list of incomplete household projects has never once gotten shorter in a decade and counting of homeownership, and George Bailey's struggles with the loose newel post cap might quietly be the part of It's A Wonderful Life that resonates most deeply with me:
I have creative projects forever trapped on the proverbial drawing board, professional-development goals that dangle out of reach, and the pervading sense that I could simply be Doing More if I weren't already overloaded by work, parenthood and the immense labor of having a mid physique and a relatively clean house.
This isn't actually meant to be a complaint, though.
Contrary to how I may sound, I can't dwell too long on the things that remain undone, because honestly, who's got time for that? All any of us can do is plow forward, hoping that today we rack up a victory or two.
Maybe today will be the day that I try out that recipe my friends have all been raving about, or the day I adjust the screen door that the dog knocked out of whack by opening it with his head too many times, or the day I finally read that novel that I was so excited about when I checked it out of the library three weeks ago.
[looks at library receipt] ah, geez, this one's due back already
Well, that's okay. (Another one I requested just came in.)
–Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)
The meanest and best thing you could do to me right now is suggest a good book that you have read recently, because I will absolutely add it to my list and maybe (but probably not) read it:
