A Year in Reading: Vanessa A. Bee

I tend to read the least when I am writing the most. This bad habit completely baffles me, given the number of times exposure to great literature has either delivered me out of creative ruts or elevated the quality of my work through some ambient mechanism that borders on metaphysical. But it’s more than that. Like most readers of The Millions, I love books. I love holding them and smelling them and hearing them. I love the feeling being swept into another mind or another world. The feeling of counting down the hours until I can reenter an engrossing narrative. Of finding the perfect literary match for a friend.

While 2021 was an exceedingly productive year writing-wise, I missed being connected to, during the previous fall. As a result, much of the following year was consumed by drafting the final chapters, then rushing to incorporate my editor’s notes before my due date. By the time the baby arrived in December 2021—happy, healthy, and two weeks early—I had read fewer than 10 books from cover to cover.