I have a ton of mass market paperbacks (the small format that is often used for popular genre books). The pages tend to turn yellow and get brittle over time. Hardcover books are often printed on better paper, so they last longer.

Textbooks are wildly overpriced and kind of a scam. I worked at a library in college and it was shocking how quickly these (very expensive) books fell apart.

The Alchemist was wildly popular, especially amongst women. I swear, every wannabe yoga teacher circa 2000 had a copy next to their copy of The Four Agreements. ‘New Age’ had gone from super popular to a performative exoticism that verged on cultural appropriation, and there was a backlash against it.

Personally, I didn’t hate The Alchemist but also didn’t love it. Coelho supposedly only wrote it in two weeks, and that checks out. I picked up a copy in Spanish while on vacation in Costa Rica—I don’t speak Portuguese so Spanish was the closest I could get to the original. It was worse in Spanish though.

Yes, exactly! There are some good lines in the book, but the movie plays the ambiguity better. I also think the tone comes across better in the movie: the business card scene and the Hip to be Square scene are standouts.

Have you read Glamorama? It’s also by Bret Easton Ellis and is the unofficial book that Zoolander is based on. It’s not as good, in my opinion, but it has its moments.

1. For the plot
2. For the plot
3. For the plot
4. For the plot
5. For the plot
6. For the plot

The Silent Patient kept me entertained enough for the few hours it took to read, but it made little sense. Most of the loose ends were there just to make the twist seem less obvious.

American Psycho was excellent! My kind of unhinged humor, although I admit I prefer the movie to the book.

There must be something wrong with me, because I found Pretty Girls to be fairly tame. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but everyone said it was deeply disturbing.

Sometimes I just don’t remember it.

It would be unrealistic to expect that I’d remember the plot of every random mass market paperback I picked up in an airport. I don’t remember the names of most of Jessica and Elizabeth’s boyfriends even though I devoured Sweet Valley books.

If I’m actually trying to remember something, I write notes.

I got really into Red Dead Online, which I think had a similar appeal to Animal Crossing. Wandered around with my friends fishing and collecting liquor bottles.

I read a bunch of thrillers and mysteries. The generic, interchangeable ones.

Total comfort reading. Maybe people getting murdered doesn’t sound like comfort reading, but I was already so stressed and it was great to have pretend stressors to attribute that stress to.

Lots of art instruction books, too, because drawing and painting helped me cope.