internet princess reader survey results are coming soon. as of right now, there are about 8,100 responses (crazy!). fill it out now if you haven’t already. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be publishing a highly-requested series of posts about reading for paid subscribers. The first is this one! I had initially planned for it to be mostly about my path to developing an earnest love of reading, but it morphed to include a lot more: a bit of analysis about current literary landscape, a reparative reading of the discourse around “performative” book culture, a sort-of defense of performance in general, a reflection on my past as a poser, and a discussion of the paradigm I call POSER ETHICS. (I also go on the record about “literary it-girls” for the first and hopefully last time.) This post was originally like 6500 words long so I tried to split it up — so there may be a part 2 coming about how trying to engage seriously with books has materially expanded my life and solidified my sense of self, and the reasons why I think reading is, for lack of a better word, “good”. Next, I’ll publish What I Read, which will list some of the best books, essays, and papers I’ve been reading recently, the writers and magazines I follow religiously, tips for tracking down pieces of paywalled, rare, or deep-cut reading material, the ways I like to find exciting new things to read day-to-day, etc. After that will be How I Read, a post about the actual habits I developed to start reading again and get the most out of what I read, as a person with a horrible attention span and a terrible work ethic. I’ve also been thinking about what I’d do if I were trying to start a career as a writer right now with zero connections or experience — this is another one of the most common questions I get from readers — so maybe I’ll write a bit about that as well. I’m excited for this series! I really like to read and it’s sort of silly I haven’t written very much about it yet! It is basically the only thing th