Connecting Dots is a monthly column by writer Amy Cowen, inspired by her popular Substack, Illustrated Life. Each month, she’ll introduce a new creative postcard prompt. So, grab your supplies and update your mailing list! Play along and tag @print_mag and #postcardprompts on Instagram.
Planning a Reading Year
I think most of us accumulate, curate, and tend a substantial, unruly “to be read” (TBR) list, whether we make a formal list that we keep in Notion or Goodreads or StoryGraph or just randomly notice covers and titles on the “new books” shelves at the library or brandished about by bookstagrammers and temporarily file them away as things we might “someday” read.
Thanks to her local library, my mom participates in an extensive yearly reading challenge with more than 100 prompts to help guide and shape a well-rounded year of reading.
As the new year approached, she spent time looking for books to fit some of the categories, prompts like “An alliterative title,” “An epistolary novel,” “A Rory Gilmore read,” “A locked room mystery,” and “A book with a pink cover.” Other prompts specify certain animals in the title, certain elements on the cover, certain locations, time periods, genres, or narrative structures. It’s fun to search for books that fit the categories and recommend books in areas she doesn’t typically read, like dystopian fiction (which I love).
I enjoy helping her craft her reading list for the challenge, but this kind of challenge isn’t for me. I do tend to like gamifying elements of my life, but maybe only when I make the rules. I don’t want to read a bunch of things I wouldn’t typically read just to fit someone else’s arbitrary list. Maybe I’m a bit of a book curmudgeon, but recognizing that life is short, I prefer my reading be self-directed. (I would still like to find a book club.)
The bonds between ourselves and another person exist only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Good Intentions and an Ever-Shifting Pile
There are so many things I want to read, books I keep hoping to circle back around to, books I check out over and over again and never crack, books I start and never finish. I always have a mix of things checked out (including lots of e-books). I have an assortment of creative nonfiction and writing-focused titles checked out right now, along with a number of art and illustration titles, but most of my reading is for pleasure, most often SF/fantasy (and lots of graphic novels).
I bailed on War and Peace last year (though I was really enjoying it), and I started, but didn’t finish, many books in the second half of the year. I’ve been waiting for a book to suck me in.
There were a few titles that I really wanted to get to last year, including the next book in the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson. Maybe this is the year I’ll read Louise Penny. Maybe I’ll get hooked on a cozy mystery series. Maybe I’ll read something from my shelves, one of the many books I can’t remember if I’ve read or not. Needing to elevate my computer on the table yesterday, I randomly pulled two books from the shelves, the composite Black Jewels trilogy and Anne of Green Gables. Always attuned to moments of synchronicity, I had to wonder if the pulls were a sign, if maybe I should read or reread either of those.
I stood in front of the shelves later and pulled another small stack of titles that jump out as ones to read or reread. I am entering a year where I know I need to begin emptying my shelves. Reading from my shelves would be a step in the right direction, although anything I read might become harder to get rid of.
Left: Assorted books currently checked out from the library; Right: ssorted books from a set of shelves, some I might read again and some I can’t remember if I’ve read or not. They all show signs of age and time.
A Long Read
A new year offers an exciting and fresh slate for reading. I am hoping to sink into something good, and recapture the feeling of reading favorites like Station Eleven, The Starless Sea, the Realm of the Elderlings books, and Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
I could just make a goal of reading the books in the stacks above, shifting titles along with the flow of the year, but something has caught my attention that I think will be the backbone of my reading for 2025.
It came out of nowhere, but a few months ago, I decided to read Proust.
This idea appeared in front of me, completely unbidden, and it took hold. For some reason, now is the time to read Proust. I don’t remember what the original thread was. Once I decided I should read Proust, I considered other long reads like Ulysses and Gravity’s Rainbow, too, in case something else might be a better pick.) I got some advice that suggested Ulysses would be a good pick for the puzzle and wordplay, and In Search of Lost Time would be a good pick for introspection about memory, love, and time.
I love wordplay, but at least two of the Proustian themes are fundamental tidal pools for me, philosophical spaces in which I wander.
So the idea of reading Proust, which had never come up before other than in rogue references in the Gilmore Girls (like when Max lends Swann’s Way to Lorelei), took hold and didn’t let go.
In November, I spent weeks pondering translations and pulling multiple copies from the library. I started the first book (Swann’s Way) to see what I thought about the narrative voice, to see if I want to wade through the famously long sentences. I couldn’t figure out what was pulling me in this direction. What I don’t need right now is a difficult read, and yet I was circling a notoriously difficult read.
I read some “how to read Proust” posts, most of which suggest only reading a few (no more than ten) pages a day. The whole endeavor of reading Proust, and it does feel like gearing up for a long journey rather than settling in on the couch for a cozy read, has an aura of anticipation, of mystery. There is the unshakable sense that this is something that could be life-changing, but I have no idea why. Maybe I just am looking for something that will be life-changing. I don’t know what is drawing me to Proust, proverbial moth to flame, what thread is pulling me, or whether I will fall in love with the prose or bail before we leave the table with the Madeleine cookie (in which case I will have made much ado about nothing). I’m not sure these days if I have it in me to stick with things. There is something in my quest for understanding that has wrapped around this self-challenge of reading In Search of Lost Time.
I spiraled a bit with the issue of translations. Proust is known for his language, and yet … won’t I be getting a translator’s language? (This issue of translation came up in War and Peace, but the draw there wasn’t the “beauty” of the prose itself, which is part of the potential with Proust.)
I got sidetracked considering translations. The translator I thought I was going with (Davis), unfortunately, only translated one book. (That series switches translators throughout the seven books, which seems odd in terms of the continuity of voice.) Posting in Reddit yielded lots of opinions and one strident suggestion for one of the newest translations (Carter), which includes extensive footnotes and an update on the language in one of the other most well-known translations.1
I checked out a book that documents paintings mentioned in In Search of Lost Time. I checked out a reader’s guide. I contemplated how to track the reading, how to document it, and whether a buddy read or collaboration around the reading was possible.
I’m starting 2025 with a slow read of Proust. What about you? What will you be reading in the early part of 2025? If you are part of a book club, you may already have a list for the year. If you read independently, maybe you’ve selected a short list to get you started, or maybe you have a plan. Maybe you follow some kind of yearly challenge that gives you a map or bingo card of books to read.
Our reading habits say a lot about us.
The Art of the Book Stack — Postcard No. 4
There are many things you could do on a postcard in January, including documenting a word, intention, or affirmation, but let’s use this month to share the book or books we will be reading. You don’t have to have a full map of the year. You just need one title or what you have checked out or what’s on the nightstand.
On a postcard, draw the book you are reading first (or next) or the short stack you have lined up.
You might draw the cover of the book(s), the stack, or the spine(s), a la Jane Mount’s wonderful Bibliophile series. (Other artists do book stack art, too, but Mount was my introduction to this format, and her books offer enticing and comprehensive visual reading lists that are fun to ponder. There are postcards of her stacks, too.)
Maybe your postcard:
Features a quote from the book
Is an exercise in lettering and highlights the title and author
Contains a comic-style rendering of the main character
Contains a set of graphic novel panels showing a scene with dialogue
Invites the recipient to read with you
Documents something from a related movie (as my examples did after watching Little Miss Sunshine)
Contains a sketchnote of the first chapter (or book jacket/back cover summary)
Is a ready-made book tracker someone can use to read the books
There are many creative directions you might take. Sharing your reading year with someone can be powerful, plus, you’ll be tracking your reading year (at least the first month) at the same time. Making a postcard about your first book of the year will almost certainly make you more intentional about the reading.
Tip: Even if you don’t send your postcard, if you create a postcard for each book you read this year and tack it to a bulletin board, imagine what a wonderful visual record of the reading year you will have later!
As an alternative, but still in keeping with the book theme, you might:
Draw the cover for a favorite book, either a life favorite or a childhood favorite. (This is something I frequently include as an illustrated journal prompt.)
Draw your own favorite stack, either an all-star stack or a stack on a favorite theme or from a favorite genre. (If you were passing on a list of recommendations to your recipient, what would be on the list?)
Draw the cover of your own “book of life” for 2025. (I love this idea as part of visualizing the year you want.)
Reading Lists
If you are looking for an annual challenge or books to use to fill in your own reading calendar, you might browse these:
The Most Popular 2025 Reading Challenges on StoryGraph (So Far) (lots of challenge options with community-generated suggestions)
Book Riot’s 2025 Read Harder Challenge
A Year of Postcard Connections
This is the fourth in a year-long series of monthly postcard art prompts, prompts that nudge you to write or make art on a postcard and send it out into the world, to connect with someone using a simple rectangle of paper that is let loose in the mail system. You can start this month! Feel free to jump in and make and send your own postcard art.
Thank you to the few people who sent postcards to me in response to my call for assorted postcards that I can weave into the images for the series.
Amy Cowen is a San Francisco-based writer. A version of this was originally posted on her Substack, Illustrated Life, where she writes about illustrated journals, diary comics/graphic novels, memory, gratitude, loss, and the balancing force of creative habit.
Images courtesy of the author.
Fair warning – because of the numerous translations, it can be hard to find the copy you want when checking out from the library or when looking at Amazon, or browsing a used bookstore online. Be careful when looking for a specific translation. ↩︎
The post Connecting Dots: A Book Stack Postcard Prompt appeared first on PRINT Magazine.