There’s something oddly intimate about a library checkout receipt. Each title a breadcrumb on the trail of your current emotional state. 

I wasn’t just checking out books. I was curating a version of myself I wanted to explore. A mood board made of borrowed voices. And if I can manage not to get distracted by other literary flings along the way, here are the six books I plan to read.

First up: Cobalt Red. Just the title feels like a warning. Congo, cobalt, capitalism, it’s a global reckoning wrapped in a glossy cover. I already feel the weight of my laptop, suddenly heavier with the knowledge of what powers it.

Then there was The Dragon Behind the Glass. A tale of power, beauty, and endangered fish. Isn’t obsession always a little exotic, a little dangerous, a little too much? We chase rare things thinking they’ll complete us, only to realize we never really had the tank for them.

What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About hits differently. Fifteen essays, each one a confessional booth without the kneeler. I’m already bracing for the emotional whiplash. 

The Dolphin House floats somewhere in the middle of my list. Gentle, mysterious, and a little unsettling. A woman, dolphins, blurred boundaries. I’m intrigued by the idea that animals might recognize our pain long before we do.

And then Know My Name by Chanel Miller. A book so powerful I had to keep putting it down just to breathe. Page after page, I felt seen, held, enraged, empowered. It was the literary equivalent of turning your pain into pearls. And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?

Lastly, Normal Women waited patiently in the wings. Thick, historical, unapologetically female. Philippa Gregory’s dive into the overlooked legacies of women through centuries reminded me that being “normal” is often the most radical act of all.

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