Juggling my new nightstand: Housekeeping, American Psychosis & Autobiography of a Yogi

For years I piled five to twenty books on my nightstand, only to ignore the next aspirational read to add yet another book to the pile. Until recently, I have tended to toggle between high-quality fiction, political or historical nonfiction (often biographies), and beach reads (mostly mysteries and science fiction). Spiritual or self-help books, I read only as part of spiritual practice or when I write and teach them. This “system” moved me through a lot of content, yet, I was always judging myself:

I should be reading new spiritual stuff continuously.

I should be reading more nonfiction.

I shouldn’t read as much beach.

Now, the solution to shoulding on myself isn’t always changing myself, but in this instance, I opted to switch to a new “system” (if someone who has a nightstand that looks like this could be said to have a system):

These days I alternate between

1 chapter spiritual

1 chapter political or historical nonfiction

1 chapter fiction (could be either high-quality or beach)

This method, which I’ve been using for about a month, lets me enjoy and see progress in multiple books at once while largely suspending judgment of myself for what I’m focussing on at any given time.

So currently on the nightstand are:

Political/historical nonfiction: American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy by David Corn (2023) — turns out the Donald Trump brand of politics didn’t pop out of nowhere. It’s fascinating to learn how the soil that allowed his brand to grow was tilled for decades beforehand. Even though I subscribe to David Corn’s newsletter, it took me months to crack the book (Here’s a good recent issue of his newsletter, Our Land: April 6, 2024: The best political video of 2024 (so far); the tragedy and absurdity of the World Central Kitchen bombing in Gaza; and more)

Spiritual:  Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda (1946). This book is almost as ubiquitous as the Gideon Bible once was, yet I never once cracked it. Now I have trouble putting it down as I toggle. When one of my gurus (Patrick Harbula) mentioned it recently, I decided it was time. It was; he had a fascinating life.

High-quality Fiction: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1980). Reminded of the book in Marilynne Robinson Considers Biden a Gift of God in a recent New York Times article. This one I’m borrowing from the library on the app Libby and reading it on my iPad.  The problem with fiction is that when I’m into it, I have much more trouble putting down the book after one chapter. I want to see what comes next. And, of course, that’s the whole point of the beach reads. Housekeeping is no beach read, yet I always want to turn the page. That’s the best combination, of course, “high-quality” and beach-like page-turner feel. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, which I just finished, was like that. Had a lot of trouble keeping to my system while I was reading that.

Sigh, I think I just need to forgive myself for the beach reads.  If Ken, the misogynist/feminist icon, can do it, so can I: