Why Write About Books Now?

I’ve never written about a book before, other than the usual school assigned reports, summaries, and analyses. I suppose it would be better to say that I’ve never recreationally written about a book. I’ve written about other subjects for fun; movies, travel stories, experiences in diet and exercise and more, just not books

After reading The Man from Beijing by Swedish author Henning Mankell, I was left with a feeling that I wanted to capture. It’s not that Man from Beijing was a particularly deep or complex work of fiction, it’s a murder mystery - a genre I haven’t visited in a while. But having spent the majority of the last 3 days buried in it I had to admit it gripped and thrilled me the way so few movies are able to do throughout the year. Reflecting on all the other books I’ve read over the past year, I realized they’ve all made an impact on me, sometimes shifting my views toward a subject (Moneyball forever changed the way I watch baseball), other times sticking in my consciousness longer term to influence decisions I would make later in life (Born to Run continues to inspire me one day complete an ultra-marathon).

It felt like letting those experiences fade would be doing the books and their respective authors an injustice. I see lots of terrible movies throughout the year, yet when it comes to reading I am never left unsatisfied by a book - even if the ending isn’t especially rewarding. At 32 years old, there are hundreds of books read already only to be forgotten over time. This is my practice to prevent this from happening in the future. Starting with The Man from Beijing, I’ll briefly reflect (this isn’t an essay, let’s keep it brief) on whatever book was most recently completed. This will also serve as a running log of the books I’ve read, and maybe someday others will contribute to these posts as well. It’ll be something to look back on and I look forward to revisiting these reflections in the years to come.

Click here for a review and recommendation of The Man from Beijing.