Secrets from 2016
What the inner reading life reveals
There’s no real point to tracking my reading habits - and yet I’ve kept a faithful log since 2011. This means I can take a fly-over of that year through what I read, and when.
2016 was a tumultuous year. A hard year. We moved to Sydney because common wisdom told us that’s what working artists had to do at some point. And we were trying to get pregnant.
My wife worked at Uniqlo. We spent weekends travelling to Parramatta to teach youth drama classes.
In January, hiding in the bedroom of our Lane Cove flat from our newly acquired roommate, I read Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It remains one of my favourite books on writing, if for no other reason than it renders Steinbeck wonderfully human. He is insecure about his book, annoyed by interruptions, and fears it will never be finished. The idea that he was making a masterpiece was entirely invisible to him.
Writing was precious and important to me. Late in 2015, my first book had been published, and my ego was awaiting fame. I was hurriedly trying to write a second book, sure my publisher would rush to print it.
In February, my reading was dotted with other Australian authors with whom I was touring at the time. My calendar was punctuated with speaking panels, talks and trips to writers’ festivals. Among the books were The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland, who was absolutely the coolest writer at the time.
Also, thrillingly, I was frequently in contact with Magda Szubanski for her memoir Reckoning - a stunning piece of work. She was and is, reassuringly, kind and wonderful.
I read and adored The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood - a fantastic piece of Aussie dystopian fiction - a natural reply to The Handmaid’s Tale.
My publisher rejected my plans for my second book.
In a revelation of my mental state, my reading in March became centred on comics. Comics are high art, but they require less cognitive load to read. They bring a reassuring pang of nostalgia.
My log is also punctuated with middle-grade reads. I’d been assured that ‘middle-grade’ was where the tide was turning. But the middle-grade authors I read weaved a magic I instantly respected. I struggled to imagine my voice in their world: Jack Heath, Andy Griffiths, Felice Arena…
Mid-year rolled through, and I no longer remember the list of books. Was I ardently making my way through some awards shortlist? None of these books have stuck around in cultural member, but they all have the whiff of being ‘significant’ and ‘important’ books of the time.
I remember picking up books from the library at Chatsworth. We moved again, to a place with a dodgy landlord in Sydney’s wealthy suburbs. I remember friends visiting, and we played Pokémon Go for an entire weekend - but everyone did. It was a phenomenon for three days. The streets of Sydney were stacked with people catching Pokemon
There is a few hi-lights here: some collections from Mary Oliver, Murakami’s 1Q84, Jay Kristoff’s first Nevernight book.
In September my first Queensland Theatre mainstage show premiered. St. Mary’s In Exile’s production week coincided with the week we moved back to Brisbane suburbia. It was an impossibly hectic time, and my reading shows it - I barely read anything in those last months. My cultural memories are of playing Overwatch in what little spare time I had.
My wife and I, out of money and defeated, considered opening a sex toy shop for extra income. It was a fun, distracting thought.
In November, Trump was elected. We found out we were pregnant.
In those closing months, exhausted and relieved, I returned to comics. My wife and I played Super Mario Odyssey on a new Nintendo Switch. And the world kept on.
I don’t have a diary of that time .Only the list of the books I read and the time I spent with them.